If last year’s Tender Buttons — essentially a stripped-back breakup album — was effectively for devotees only, then this excellent compilation of B-sides, EP tracks and one-offs is a much easier way to pick Broadcast’s lock.
Chunks of Joe Meek, Radiophonic Workshop and jazz weirdness rub up against a modern, oddly West Midlands worldview: this is music for melancholic astronauts, lost in love, lost in orbit, wondering how the Blues got on last Saturday. Trish Keenan’s lullaby vocals are at their best on a gravity-defying seven-minute Unchanging Window, though her partner James Cargill is effectively a soloist on the numerous instrumentals. Often itchy, yet always melodic.
(Warp)