Underrated: Broadcast

 

Broadcast were indie electronica duo Trish Keenen and James Cargill, formed in Birmingham in 1995. They released their debut album The Noise Made by People in 2000. 

Their sound is a perfect blend of 60's dreaminess, sparse indie and electronic synths and noises. Trish in her singing managed to convey so much whilst vocally sounding icy cold at the same time. She sometimes recorded her vocals with her head in a cardboard box giving her voice a "closeness and deadness". She sounded like a 60s torch singer with a modern coolness.

The song Papercuts on their first album really gets me in the heart with the beautiful post chorus of "Don't be so afraid/ You're bound to make mistakes/ No matter who or where you are" The way Trish sings it so tenderly, man it really gets you. Then the gut punch of the closing song Until Then with the lines "If you think nothing is yours/ And if I think everything belongs to me/ How wrong I'll be, none of us have anything/ There's a place I have never explored/ Another world we have yet to conquer/ And until then none of us have anything"

The 2005 album Tender Buttons has perhaps one of the most beautiful songs every recorded in You and Me in Time, a short almost lullaby. The b-sides and rarities collection The Future Crayon released in 2006 got me through a really tough time in my life. Go listen to Small Song IV and be soothed. 

Tragically Trish Keenen passed away way too soon in 2011 but her wonderful music lives on.

Essential songs to check out: Papercuts, Until Then, Come on Let's Go, Corporeal, Black Cat, Tears in the Typing Pool, You and Me in Time

Albums:

The Noise Made by People (2000)

Haha Sound (2003)

Tender Buttons (2005)

Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age (2009)

Berberian Sound Studio (2013)