- A treasure trove of live recordings that build on the British band's legacy, and make a great introduction for new fans, too.
- There's a bittersweet gratitude that comes with being a Broadcast fan. On the one hand, the band's discography is perpetually rewarding—it's sizable, restless and singular enough to keep yielding new discoveries to obsess over. But it's also heartbreaking. Trish Keenan's sudden death in January 2011 cut short a brilliant career that was moving towards an even more transcendent, surrealist direction.
Since Keenan's death there has been a molasses-slow drip of archival Broadcast material. Occasionally over the past decade, cofounder James Cargill would post one of Keenan's four-track demos to SoundCloud in honor of her birthday. Broadcast would often reinterpret their songs when playing live, so for devotees of the band—especially those who didn’t have the chance to see them perform—the demos offered a way to hear these songs anew. Every now and then, rips of the band's Paris Black Session or final performances would hit YouTube, while fans searched high and far for any unheard morsel to combat the achingly sad understanding that we already have pretty much all the Broadcast we're going to get.
Warp Records has clearly noticed the internet's small ecosystem of Broadcast bootlegs, and has remastered four of the band's BBC sessions for a new compilation. Maida Vale Sessions, recorded from 1996 to 2003, serves as an overview of the band's evolution as it morphs through lineup changes and sonic experiments. It works wonderfully as an introduction to Broadcast for curious newcomers, or a gift to those who know these songs inside and out.
Most of the collection draws from Broadcast's early years, when the band spliced together disparate influences of hard bop jazz and British folk. Splashy ride cymbals groove alongside trembling synth lines during faithful renditions of Work And Non Work favorites like "World Backwards" and "The Note [Message From Home]." When the band shifts into selections from The Noise Made By People, they slow down and fully inhabit those songs' underlying drones. "Long Was The Year" adds almost a full minute to the album version's run time, achieving an enveloping psychedelic squall by gradually accumulating layers of overdriven electronics. "Echo's Answer" follows a similar tack, beefing up the rhythm section's loping waltz and hypnotically vamping on the song's repeating chord structure.
Maida Vale Sessions's final stretch documents the group's embrace of noisier elements, featuring three selections from 2003's clattering LP Haha Sound. This version of "Pendulum" quickens the pace, whipping itself into a shoegazing frenzy rather than sinking into the motorik minimalism present on the album. "Colour Me In" opens with what sounds like a synthesizer's dying gasps, only to clear up into a more crystalline, chiming take, free from Haha Sound's cacophony. Where the album version disintegrates into spiraling organized noise, this one dissolves into an ominous cloud of drone as Trish softly coos through the maelstrom.
Beyond the alternate versions, the real draw for Broadcast fans are two previously unreleased songs. "Forget Every Time" is a sensuous Work Or Not Work-era gem that was never properly recorded. Here, quivering theremin frames Keenan's most emotive singing on the collection, as she describes the sad dissolution of a relationship. It's a fascinating treasure that sounds as though “House Of The Rising Sun'' was deconstructed and reassembled in the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop.
The most striking cut is the band's inspired cover of Nico's "Sixty Forty," an icy, detached lament about the emptiness of fame. Broadcast finds the song's warmth, turning it into another one of their many meditations on the afterlife. As the band pulses towards "Sixty Forty"'s crushing, distorted finale, Keenan's unadorned voice suddenly doubles, repeating "Will there be another time?" The searing guitar and bitcrushed synth bass charge forward for another few moments before abruptly snuffing out. It's a beautiful and heart-wrenching end to the collection, a reminder of how suddenly Keenan was taken from us. Like the rest of Maida Vale Sessions, it’s a testament to how Broadcast could recontextualize familiar elements—even those of their own songs—to create something otherworldly.
TracklistJohn Peel, October 6th, 1996
01. The Note [Message From Home]
02. Untitled [City In Progress]
03. Forget Every Time
04. World backwards
Evening Session, March 1st, 1997
01. Come On Let’s Go
02. Look Outside
03. The Book Lovers
04. Lights Out
John Peel, February 9th, 2000
01. Long was The Year
02. Echo’s Answer
03. Where Youth And Laughter Go
John Peel, August 19th, 2003
01. Pendulum
02. Colour Me In
03. Minim
05. Sixty Forty