birmingham's notorious perfectionists make a welcome return after three relatively quiet years, and it sounds like the time away has done them a world of good. probably the queerest duck in the eclectic warp records' pond, broadcast specialize in uneasy torch songs with no certain conclusions; they're quick studies who tempered the rapturous loudness of american producers brian wilson and phil spector with the cool detachment of john barry, ennio morricone and english spy&gangster cinema. topping it all off with trish keenan's indelibly clinical vocals, they recorded some of the most memorable songs of the late nineties. musically and historically conscious as broadcast were, the only artists critics could really call their peers, and eventually influences, were stereolab, a comparison as grossly reductive as it was inaccurate (hell, i only "got" stereolab a few years after i discovered broadcast, almost ten years after i'd first heard them). if their new album, haha sound, doesn't redress this, nothing will.
"color me in" opens, a deliriously tweaked circus dance with some heady maths swirling about keenan's signature singsong, but haha's futurism is decidedly atavistic and unmistakably english. you can still hear some brill building evp if you listen intently, but accused murderer phil's been thrown over another kind of spectre: these recordings have acknowledged murderer (and exhibit b of my forthcoming powerpoint presentation about the potentially lethal effects of reverb abuse) joe meek's brylcreem and channeled ectoplasm all over it. i don't think i've heard this much clanging echo, barely controlled reverb and general squigginess in a pop song since meek's "telstar" completely rocked my understanding of what insane musics actually charted before received wisdom drew a line from pierre schaffer and stockhausen directly to the beatles. the bracing and deserved first single , "pendulum", adds a little motorik pulse to the proceedings and it's clear just how alive and thrilling forty year old sounds can still be in capable hands. broadcast, like stereolab, are a great "gateway" band, and i hope this album spurs as big a rediscovery of meek as transient random noise bursts and announcements did of neu!. letting the answering machine take calls so i don't have to pause the incredible vocal harmonies and outer space reverbs of "lunch hour pops" and "black umbrellas", i realize that i'm listening to the shoe-in for album of the year.
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