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$11.99 CD
$12.99 LP
$9.99 MP3
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BROADCAST & THE FOCUS GROUP
Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age
(Warp)
 "The Be Colony"
"One Million Years Ago"
One of Broadcast's charms has always been their ability to successfully instill a technological context into their music which is simultaneously both retro and forward-looking; the UK group's early records fused a strong 1960s pop context centered around bands like the United States of America and the Silver Apples, with allusions to drum-break-centric dance music culture -- tellingly, Broadcast was one of the first pop/rock-oriented acts on influential electronic label Warp, and in America they released and album on hip-hop label Tommy Boy. The same can easily be said of their peers on the roster of the always intriguing Ghost Box label, which specializes in similarly contexed psychedelia; the folks on Ghost Box, however, have tended to focus more on the underappreciated pop aspects of master sound collagists the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and the French musique concrete school.
It makes perfect sense, then, that for this new release Broadcast have worked in collaboration with Ghost Box founder and flagship act the Focus Group. Not only do they share similar musical aesthetics, but their visual mindsets have been in synch from the get-go as well -- Julian House, the man behind the Focus Group, has also done the sleeve art for all of Broadcast's albums and EPs over the years. On Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate the Witch Cults, they create a wonderfully dense and dizzying sound environment where singer Trish Keenan's lucid dream vocals and James Cargill's keyboard and guitar melodies are new ingredients in House's Ghost Box of sampladelic tricks. Each contribution is treated with equal importance -- while Keenan's vocals manage to sneak out what could be considered a pop tune here and there, she mainly sings lullabies into the sonic ether, like a moth drawn to a multicolored flame; her voice gets cut up, looped, and multi-tracked amongst nature samples, jazz drum fills, tribal séances, flutes, alarm clock bells, and plenty of the wonky, slightly antiquated electronics that we've come to love from both groups. This is without a doubt the most directly psychedelic, disorienting release yet applied to the Broadcast name, and also has the pleasure of being one of the most wholly satisfying Ghost Box-related releases as well. This is a challenging record, to be sure, but it's beautifully so, and all the better for it. Records like this one are the reason Broadcast remain one of my personal favorite contemporary groups, and its autumn release couldn't be more perfectly timed. Highest recommendation! [IQ]
Order CD by Texting "omcdbroadcastinvestigate" to 767825
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