Spellbinding Broadcasts

There's been more new things on the Broadcast front - after the re-release of Mother Is The Milky Way and the first official release of a bunch of live recordings on the Maida Vale Sessions, we're getting a new seleciton of previously unreleased demos. James Cargill of Broadcast did promise this some years ago, so it's nice to see them finally come out proper. Some of these I have heard before as they were (sometimes only briefly) on James' Soundcloud, but I imagine they've been polished up as best they can be for the proper release.

The demos are split into two albums, one Distant Call mainly focusing on demos of tracks that actually were eventually released. There is only one of them available for preview right now. It feels fairly final, there's not much difference between the final studio version in terms of structure - but it does have a lovely lo-fi sound which is something I've gained an appreciation for in recent years. I'd have liked a little peek at the early versions of the more electronic stuff from Tender Buttons, but I'm grateful for the preservation of these sketches either way.



The other album, Spell Blanket is entirely made up of unreleased demos, a massive amount of them to boot, clocking in at a fairly hefty 36 tracks. There are 2 tracks up for preview right now (which to be fair is probably the amount that I'd listen to, I tend to drip feed these things these days), and it's been wonderful to hear Trish's voice again in a 'new' context.

Follow The Light is suitably dreamy and once again quite fleshed out for something that is on paper a 'demo'. Having said that it's ver likely that it has been expanded upon from the original - there are moments when the tape hiss cuts out - a little jarring on a close listen but it's not too extreme to pull me out of the experience. Even so, a little bit of assemblage is on brand fro Broadcast. A beautiful slice of melancholy, and a wonderful choice for a 'preview' of the experience.



The Games You Play is the other preview-able track as of now and is another quintessentially Broadcast piece. Trish's vocal accompaniment feels very playful here, and the whole thing is nicely 'looser' than a full on studio piece (which feels like an obvious thing to say about a demo from a collection of demos I know) it reminds me a lot of the live bootlegs I have of the band where there's a lot of riffing and interplay improvisation between Trish & the band



It's still quite a ways away - September as of writing - but I'll be sure to keep this one on my radar. There's a lot to be excited for here, though I've heard some of these demos before it's nice to have them officially out there. Follow The Light is a beautiful listen, and one that has me enchanted by Trish's vocals all over again. It's looking like this might be the last material we get from them, but it's a fitting way to close things out. That'll be all for today, until next time, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Re-Broadcast

Returning to an old flame of mine with this one - we're talking about one of my all time favourites and one of the more lesser known Warp acts, Broadcast. A unique sound amidst the other Warp clientele, Broadcast's works were a refreshing change of pace for a teenage me, who until then had been strictly listening to only electronic music. Not that I didn't have any non-electronic music, but the things I was finding were so much more interesting, you know? I'd still say it's a good 80-20 split to this day, but Broadcast were one of the acts that started that shift.

It's been a long time since then, and to this day returning to Broadcast is a very cosy experience - I have loved and will continue to love these records, but it has been a while since I've been back to them. I've spent a good part of this week doing one giant revisit, as Warp announced some new Broadcast stuff: some reissues of previously tour-exclusive works and a proper official release of some sessions they did for the BBC. It's the latter that has me the most excited, after the Peel Session they did wasn't included when Warp reissued the other ones from the label recently I thought hope was gone. Naturally, I've had bootleg recordings of the sessions for years already, but I am very interested in hearing proper professional versions of them.

Of note is the track Forget Every Time, never released on any albums or EPs, but it is one of my favourites the group ever did. A perfect demonstration of their sound circa the mid-late 90's, full of swirling synths and underpinned with that distinctive 60's throwback psychedelia that would define their first few albums. Coming back to them now, I've fallen in love with Trish Keenan's lyricism all over again - from the playful wordplay and abstraction of Tender Buttons to the more traditional songwriting of their early work, Keenan has penned some lines that sometimes appear from the ether in my head. So I thought I'd share some of them here today.

Going quite early to begin with - Lights Out from the compilation Work And Non Work, a summary of their first few EPs. This compilation was a companion for me during a pretty strange time in my life, and to be honest could make up the whole post with the lines I could quote from it. Lights Out is a slice of melancholy compared to the rest of the tracklist, one that brings the whole compilation tracks to a suitably mellow end. Trish's lyrics on it are also suitably listless as well, full of intensely relatable lines to late teen like I was at the time. Most obvious of them is the curtain call of the chorus: "I want to watch the car park empty / It's easy when they're strangers to say goodbye", but my favourite one is in the very first stanza: "My room's too small for parties / Too spacious when you're lonely"



It's not all gloomy tough, we're jumping forward to their proper debut on Warp Records from 2000, The Noise Made By People. A strong contender for one of my favourite album covers as well - designed by Julian House who does a fantastic job of capturing the audio experience of Broadcast in visual form. On revisit The Noise Made By People is quite a bit more somber than I remember, but Look Outside sure isn't. The whole album is a very good jumping in point for Broadcast (for this era at least), I'm scrolling through the tracklist now and each one is an integral part of the experience. There is of course some admitted bias on my part there, but if you like the sound of the above and this one, you too will fall in love with this record. My favourite moment from this one remains Trish's delivery of the line "You colour in the everyday, wherever I go"



Let's touch on their later work now with Tender Buttons, named for the Gertrude Stein collection of poems and employing a simialr abstract approach to the lyricism. I think that approach works better when set to music as it lets the abstraction play with the rhythms, which Keenan does to great effect throughout, best seen on the title track Tender Buttons. The album itself marks an interesting development in the Broadcast sound beyond the lyrics though, reduced at this point to a skeleton crew of just James Cargill and Trish Keenan, the album is a much more DIY sounding affair - the electronics taking a much more pronounced role than on previous releases. It can be a bit divisive among the fans but I really like it, the feeback-y bits of tracks like Black Cat and this one here are nice (if a little confusing if your phone is nearby!). There are plenty of lyrical highlights scattered throughout the tracklist, but I want to highlight this line from Corporeal because it has a really nice rhythm to it: "Under the white chalk / Drawn on the blackboard / Under the X-Ray / I'm just a vertabrae".



I've neglected to mention the album between these ones - Haha Sound but rest assured I could easily pop it on here among plenty of other examples as well, honourable mentions to Inside the mask, another disguise / I fall to sleep before closing my eyes" from Valerie. But I'm going to put a pin in it for now as I've gone a little long - and I will probably be revisiting this theme once again once the aforementioned 'new' Broadcast stuff comes out. I adore Broadcast, and the passage of time has done little to dull that shine. Very happy to see new material officially coming out as well, James Cargill has mentioned in the past that there is a fair amount of unreleased work they have, and he semi-frequently posts bits and pieces to the web as well.

We'll take this trip again closer to the release of those goodies in a month or so, but until then - as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Unheard

My Warp revisit continues - when I was first taking my deep dive into Warp's backcatalogue it was a great time as they were doing a year long celebration thing that meant re-issues of classic albums in double pack format were really easy to come by, in this futursitic if a bit clincal grey packaging. Alongise that were three compilations, much like the Warp10 ones but a bit different in practice.

The three are subtitled (Chosen), (Unheard) and (Recreated) respectively. And the titles pretty much give it all away - (Chosen) is community and Warp selected picks from their archives, (Recreated) is covers of classic Warp tracks by other Warp artists and (Unheard) is previously unreleased stuff. And it's this compilation in particular that I'll be talking about today.

The compilation is real good, but there's no denying that there are some deliberately chosen standout tracks on there. Case in point, it opens with the simply divine Seven Forty Seven from Boards Of Canada. If you've ever gone on a trip into the BoC fandom, you will know that there is a mountain of unreleased material from them - from snippets of tracks played only at live shows to early fragments of demos from cassette tapes and Seven Forty Seven is actually a slightly revised version of a track originally 'called' Audiotrack 6A from the 'Random 35 Tracks' tape.

The original is hauntingly beautiful in it's own right - the tape hiss and other cassette artifacts only playing into that fuzzy nostalgia that BoC do so well, though the beat sounds a little out of place, it very clearly signposts the sound that they were heading towards come their actual releases. And that makes Seven Forty Seven so interesting, it's the BoC boys revisiting a decades old sample and putting together a more refined version of their vision that more easily comes with all that extra experience. The track itself would have fit right in on The Campfire Headphase but it's perhaps even older than that, as snippets of this could be heard on the really old Boardsofcanada.com flash (RIP) website back in the day. Over time the song grows into a cacophony of various sounds, but it manages to not feel overwhelming in doing so. It's not my favourite BoC sound, but it's certainly one of their finest hours and an incredible demonstration of their aesthetic approach.



Autechre next - as I've said before their earlier work circa Incunabula and Amber are my favourites, and this compilation was a treat in that sense. Scratching an itch that wouldn't be hit again until they released the Warp Tapes 89-93 as a freebie a couple of years ago now is Oval Moon. Far removed from their genre bending trips into electronic that they are known for these days, their early pieces are very much befitting of that 'Listening Electronic' idea that Warp was pitching around the early 90's, a sort of ambient techno that's often infused with a high-tech melodic edge.

I have plenty of favourites from that era - from Richie Hawtin's work as F.U.S.E. on Dimension Intrusion to the decidedly Sci-Fi Electro-Soma from B12, to Autechre themselves, but I think if I had to pick one song that defined most of the elements of that style it would be Oval Moon - it's maybe a smidge repetitive to be the perfect example IMO, but that could easily be because this is a previously unreleased track, perhaps even a demo. Despite that I'd still consider it a solid example: all of the sounds are there and the little techy flourishes sprinkled throughout are an absolute delight, really capturing the spirit of that series. If you like this as much as I, absolutely seek out those Warp Tapes 89-93 I mentioned earlier (they were free from Autechre's store way back when but I don't know if that's still the case...) - it's essentially two continuous hours of early Autechre jams like this one.



And finally, Sixty Forty, Broadcast's cover of Nico. This one's another case like BoC where the (Unheard) tag isn't 100% true - they had performed Sixty Forty a few times, maybe at some live shows but absolutely on one of their many Peel Sessions (I know this because I have a recording of one!). Still, as with the BoC track it's nice to have a studio version at least and not a radio rip of it - though like Seven Forty Seven the lo-fidelity recording suits the skeletal electronics that Broadcast were playing with around the Tender Buttons era (though the Peel Session recording is actually from a few years before). There are other unreleased Broadcast tracks I would have loved to hear proper versions of if they exist - Forget Every Time from another Peel Session being one of them. The surviving Broadcast member James Cargill has put quite a few demos and other Broadcast miscellany on Soundcloud in recent years, so it's a possibility at the very least.

But that's veering off topic - I love Sixty Forty, but it being a cover leads to many, many pretentious arses whinging about it 'ruining' it. It's a different sound for Broadcast, the electronics are very much like what they would go on to use in Tender Buttons, especially on the title track of the same name - but the slow build up of layers and layers of sound on top of that as the song progresses is something new for them, and one that's done really well here. Trish's vocal is great too, (though that is something that also draws out the cover comparisons) perhaps not the best demonstration of her flexibility but very much in line with that stoic delivery that was present in certain tracks of Tender Buttons, a sound that suits that stripped back approach oh so well too. There is a bit of bias there as I have said many times that Trish is one of my favourite vocalists ever, there are definitely other Broadcast tracks where she shines brighter - but I love the bittersweet Sixty Forty all the same.



That'll do it for today, I could go on and on about these compilations but I'll refrain for now. Do check out the others if you're interested - (Chosen) is a solid rundown of the best bits of Warp and (Recreated) has some astounding covers on it to boot - my favourites being the ambient Piano inversion of Aphex Twin's Vordhosbn from Leila and the intense breakcore styled rework of Milanese's So Malleable by Clark. But I'll hold onto those for a rainy day sometime.

And as always - Stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

This Means Warp

Horace Pippin - The Warped Table (1940)

Seem to have hit a bit of a dry spell, though that may be me being spoiled by the massive influx of new stuff I was discovering in the final few months of last year - I've been spending a lot more time with Warp Records as of late, not only because of that recent nostalgia kick of mine but also thanks to their appearance on Bandcamp.

Truth be told, a lot of the stuff I've got lined up isn't really 'new' so much as it is things I've been meaning to get to for a while, with the possible exception of this one! I posted around the time it came out, the 25th anniversiary edition of Smokers Delight, one of my favourite albums of all time (and one I was supposed to see performed live and in full before the virus) comes with a bunch of bonus tracks. And for my money, the best one is the first, Aquaself. I'm pretty sure these are new tracks NOW made in the spirit of the album and not forgotten B-sides - at any rate it demonstrates NOW's ability to make a killer groove, full of gorgeous floruishes in sound and steel pan harkeneing back to the original LP, it effortlessly sails through it's 6 minute runtime.



B12 next, there isn't much of their work on the Warp Bandcamp (but then again I don't think they released much on Warp at all) but what is there is sweet as. Time Tourist, while not my favourite album of theirs has the aesthetic of the futuristic Warp techno of the time down to a fine art. With it's cover envisioning a retro-futuristic take on London and track titles like The Silicon Garden, it really brings back the wide-eyed tech-optimist in me. This one in particular sounds a little like some of the stuff Oneohtrix Point Never was making in the R Plus Seven era, albeit much less experimental - it's gorgeous hi-tech ambient electronic to get absolutely lost in. A real hidden gem in the Warp catalogue, definitely look up B12 if you love this sound as much as I.



And finally, speaking of hidden gems - Broadcast. My favourite example of one from Warp. I just adore everything that Broadcast put out, I'd admired them from a distance for a long time but shortly after I decided to explore in earnest the band was cut short with the untimely death of Trish Keenan. Keenan was and is up there on my list of all time favourite vocalists and Broadcast showed tremendous versatility over their fairly short release history - going from 60's revival psychedelia on The Noise Made By People to the stripped and skeletal DIY electronics of Tender Buttons. Still Feels Like Tears is originally from the Pendulum EP: a track from the Haha Sound era, but you can hear precursors of Tender Buttons in those backing synths. Keenan is also on point from the get go - establishing that hazy, dreamy retro vibe from the very beginning. The real highlight is her main vocal here though, I love everything about her tone on the choruses, excellently enhanced by the slightly off-kilter instrumentation.



Slightly shorter post this time, trying to break things up a bit. I started another Retro Review today but that too looks like it will be very lengthy to say the least. So to buy me some time and break up the text a bit I thought I'd put this one up first! I hope you enjoy and as always: Stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

The Great British Bonanza

Not going to lie, I didn't really have a plan this week, and I didn't want to leave you all with *nothing* for another week, so I decided to kinda cop-out a bit with some archiving I've been meaning to do anyway. Here is an old mixtape thing (and an idea I shamelessly stole from Bibio from 2013!); a whirlwind tour of the isles I call home - touching a whole host of genres along the way. It's not *strictly* electronic but only barely, before it goes all in on the Drum & Bass, ending in that gorgeous explosion that is Surface To Air. I believe I originally wanted this to be a more in-depth tour of genres of the UK (hence the big D&B part), touching on Garage, Trip-Hop and old school Rave and Hardcore. But that might be a bit beyond both my skill level and things in my collection! Perhaps another time. Full track list here:

Tracklist:
Broadcast - I Found The F
Grape Digging Sharon Fruits - Man-Made Reservoir
Commix - Burn Out (Fade Away)
Goldie - Timeless (Inner City Life)
Omni Trio - Sanctuary
The Chemical Brothers - Surface To Air


A little light I know, but I'll try and be back next week with something a little more substantial - if you've never heard this mix I did (it was originally for the podcast), I hope you enjoy! And as always - Stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Hangin' On The Telephone (Once More)

NOTE: Hi there! I'm going through the backcatalogue and re-publishing all the posts I can find. I'm re-posting them as new articles too just so there is visible content going up. This post is originally from January 2016.

Enjoy,
-CVF

Turns out waiting for phonecalls: not fun. Especially when the quiet gives your silly brain time to think shitty questions like "Do they have the right number?" So here I am writing a thing to distract me. Is it working? I 'unno but I'm gonna keep typing anyway.

Hiro Yamagata - Rainy Day (1986)

Been listening to a lot of Gorillaz as of late, there were some rumblings of new things to come from Mr. Albarn not too long back which I am very much looking forward to. Until then Plastic Beach and co are more than enough to keep me going. I'll forever love the synthesized sounds on show here, especially on the choruses.



A long long time ago I posted a bootleg recording of a Broadcast Peel Session, and ever since then I've lamented that there was no other Broadcast songs with a similar sound. Well look no further if you were like me, as the main hook of Living Room consists of an arpeggiated almost organ like synth. And of course Trish Keenan is on top form as usual to tie it all together.



And one last revisit to the synthpop side of things. I've been meaning to get some more indie synthy things in the collection (but then again what am I not meant to be adding to it at any point?), and I gotta thank the Simones for reminding me on a semi-regular basis of that. A bit like a musical shopping list.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: Hello 2019

"The Ilictronix Show is back in the new year! Claude and Adam share and discuss their favorite tracks of the week. Claude waxes poetic about Electropop. Adam shares his favorite tracks from his NYE sets"

We are back with our first episode of 2019! I wanted to get all nostalgic about my electropop itch that comes up every couple of months, but it soon turned into a reflection of "Holy shit how are these tracks turnign 10 this year". After Adam's on-point as always intro, I open things up with the always in my heart Broadcast. Something I say in the episode is how overlooked I feel they are but what I didn't mention is how it pains me to know that there'll be no more Broadcast records after Trish's untimely passing some years ago. Though there are some rumblings from Cargill about potential future releases, so fingers crossed eh? A detour into more of what I had in mind when I chose Electropop as a theme with Au Revoir Simone, who in similar fashion are long overdue for a new release! A little bit from Gorillaz, as I touch on my relationship with Plastic Beach and how it became a listening mainstay for me (and some brief wonder at the age of the LP).

And a little bit of nostalgia to round things out for long time readers and myself; probably my most featured artists so far on the podcast, I touch on the production values and methodology behind Röyksopp's musical goodbye to the album format, The Inevitable End. As a single Running To The Sea is fantastic, if (as mentioned in the show) a little over-produced in parts. I draw a comparison to their previous big hit What Else Is There? too, but really they're very different beasts, with Running being a much more pop-informed piece. And finally one of the standouts from Simian Mobile Disco's Temporary Pleasure. There were a couple of big singles from it but it seems largely overlooked, while it does suffer from being that difficult sophomore album for the group I think it's a little unfair, case in point with Cruel Intentions. Apologies in advance for choosing for the absolutely crushing Until We Bleed as an outro track too, I promise you the rest of Kleerup's album is much more upbeat!

Adam also takes us on a rundown of his picks for his NYE mixing shenanigans. While I'm a little disappointed we don't have any recordings of them actually being played live, I almost prefer them in this format. Something about Adam talking about them while they play in the background made for a very evocative experience, same as those satisfying videos out there of people passionately talking about their craft. Something else I'd like to appreciate going into this new year is just how different Adam's selections are from mine. I mean that in the nicest possible way too, it's great for you all as listeners to have these different curated lists, and it gives me a much needed glimpse into electronic stuff I may not have come across otherwise (mainly due to me being out of touch with what's new these days, but also as we've mentioned in the past, the sheer volume of electronic stuff out there can make it tricky to find anything). Adam also had some good points on romanticising DJ culture and nightlife in general that I think bears repeating, especially this early in the new year. We've lost a fair few performers over the last couple of years, and it goes without saying that clubs and the like can be dangerous places. It also plays into some othewr side projects I have going on too but we won't dwell on it much longer, as always Stay Safe, Enjoy the music and the Full tracklist follows as per usual.

Tracklist:
Intro:
Crackazat - Holding You Close

Claude’s picks:
Broadcast - America's Boy
Au Revoir Simone - Shadows
Gorillaz - Broken
Röyksopp - Running To The Sea
Simian Mobile Disco - Cruel Intentions


Adam’s Picks
Kettama - Body
Junktion - I'm Wishin'
S3A - Antois Benime
M.ono & Luvless - Just Like Magic
T.U.R.F. -Reggie Fox

Outro:
Kleerup - Until We Bleed


Show Notes:
Adam mentioned something to go in the show notes, just reserving this space until I get a chance to listen to the EP and fill it in!

The British Bonanza (Podcast Supplement)

Holiday season means there'll be no traditional podcast episode this week, instead we have a kinda mixtape dealie from yours truly Van Foxbat. The running theme, as you might have guessed from the title is that all artists featured hail from the ilses I call home. I've had this selection half baked in a forgotten section of my HDD for some years now, I took it out and spruced it up a little bit, gave it a few extra tracks and here we are.



So please enjoy my slightly eclectic seletions for this week, we go from the skeletal electropop of Broadcast into some more folky stuff courtesy of the Grape Dgging Sharon Fruits, before making our way into drum & bass territory by way of a house tune from Commix; leading us into the gorgeous and etheral Timeless from Goldie, and the supremely lush Sanctuary from Omni Trio before coming to a close with The Chemical Brothers' Surface To Air, one of my all time favourite final tracks from an album. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next week! Formatted track-list can be found below as usual. Me and Adam will be back to usual schedule next week, (at least until the December holiday season) see you then!

Tracklist:
Broadcast - I Found The F
Grape Digging Sharon Fruits - Man-Made Reservoir
Commix - Burn Out (Fade Away)
Goldie - Timeless
Omni Trio - Sanctuary
The Chemical Brothers - Surface To Air

-Claude Van Foxbat

Reflections

Helen Frankenthaler - Reflections IV (1995)

A return to a more eclectic mix of tunes like I used to do in years past. Starting with a little underrated piece from Massive Attack's Protection. For me the LP is so, so close to being on my 10/10 albums list, but it falls at the last hurdle with a slightly naff live cover of Light My Fire which doesn't really fit with the rest of the album. Still it's essential listening for anyone into downtempo, and Eurochild is home to one of my favourite verses ever courtesy of Tricky at around 2:53: "Take a second of me, You beckon I'll be. When you're sad I'll mourn and when you tear, I'm torn.".



I've spoken on a few occasions about my favourite vocalists, and Trish Keenan of Broadcast is very near the top of that list. All her songs have a light bittersweet edge to them now that she is unfortunately no longer with us, but I'm always consistently in love with her vocal delivery. And what better song to show that off than the fairly minimal cover of Nico's Sixty Forty, Trish's vocals have a slightly lo-fi feel to them here, but it continues to remain one of my favourite pieces of hers.



Keeping it downtempo for the final choice. I've been having a lot of Moby's more ambient work on in the background while I work. Play is still a fantastic album (if a little overplayed) almost 20 years on. Here's the short interlude Down Slow, a far cry from the ambient pieces on the fittingly titled Long Ambients 1: Calm. Sleep. it clocks in at just over a minute and a half. It comes up in the shuffle once in a blue moon and sometimes just blindsides me and I get a little lost in it. This has been one of those times.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Chilly Out (2017 Re-Post)

Note from Claude: Hi all! I'm currently laid up with a intense migraine and the weather's shite, but I've managed to glance up at a screen long enough to dig up this post from 2015 which I'm re-posting to fill in for my usual selections on a Sunday. Thanks to technology for allowing me to write this bit using speech to text, enjoy the trip down memory lane and I'll be back next week with the usual.

Oh boy has the cold come home fast. 0 to frosty mornings overnight, which means it's finally time to do my annual tradition of prepping winter playlists. Let's get right on in.

Gustave Caillebotte - View Of Rooftops (Effect Of Snow) (1878/9)

After my recent trip into the world of what electropop I have in my collection thanks to a soundcloud roundup I've been crushing on my long time favourites Broadcast once again. I've written pretty extensively about my love for them, and I won't repeat myself here, instead enjoy the wintery tones of the penultimate track of Haha Sound.



To that end, a long lost relic from 2008/9 popped back up on that search. Honestly surprised it took so long to come back up, I haven't heard anything from Youth Novels for about 3 years despie daily shuffling o fmy entire library. But it came back, and ho boy these feelings and memories hit pretty hard. I'll have to catch up with Ms. Li sometime soon.



Of course Boards Of Canada were on the lineup for a cold playlist, I'm still amazed at some of the tracks they have tucked away on obscure, often unreleased albums. I've covered a few of the tunes from the aptly named Old Tunes tapes a while ago, but as of right now I'm digging Boc Maxima, and reminding myself of why Whitewater is one of my favourite pieces of BoC.





-Claude Van Foxbat

We Miss You

Today would have been Trish Keenan's birthday. One of my favourite voices from one of my favourite Warp acts, she's had a profound effect on my life and has seen me through some rough spots. The surviving Broadcast member James Cargill keeps fairly active in putting things up around anniversary time which is something I really admire, not only because it's lovely to hear bits and pieces of demos and things that influenced them but also because it must be incredibly difficult to continue on without Trish, and digging through the archives must only compound that.

Here's to you Trish, you've given me plenty of entertainment through the years and that will only continue. Thank you for everything.





-Claude Van Foxbat

Echo's Answer

Was listening back to mine and Adam's project and there's a bit in it where I talk about Broadcast a little. I've tried to keep it to a minimum in the actual posts because I bet I could go on for days about how much I love 'em but I thought I'd finally break and have a little cross section of some favourites. Starting off with the first of theirs I heard beyond America's Boy.



A lot of my picks have a bit of a melancholy streak to them, it's something that's always appeared on their releases even going back to their fist, not to say that they don't have more upbeat (albeit often abstract) songs mind. Much like Beth Gibbons of Portishead, I absolutely adore Keenan's delivery and there are plenty of times where I've been in her shoes with what she describes.



Rounding out with the penultimate track from Tender Buttons, it ushers in the end of the album nicely, it's the bittersweet goodbye before moment of reflection offered by the purely ambient final track. I'd always hoped for more to come, but those tapes mentioned by the band's survivor James Cargill don't seem to be surfacing, or were perhaps already used in the Berberian Sound Studio soundtrack. I am more than content with what we have however, they'll always be a highlight of Warp's roster for me.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Hangin' On The Telephone

Turns out waiting for phonecalls: not fun. Especially when the quiet gives your silly brain time to think shitty questions like "Do they have the right number?" So here I am writing a thing to distract me. Is it working? I 'unno but I'm gonna keep typing anyway.

Hiro Yamagata - Rainy Day (1986)

Been listening to a lot of Gorillaz as of late, there were some rumblings of new things to come from Mr. Albarn not too long back which I am very much looking forward to. Until then Plastic Beach and co are more than enough to keep me going. I'll forever love the synthesized sounds on show here, especially on the choruses.



A long long time ago I posted a bootleg recording of a Broadcast Peel Session, and ever since then I've lamented that there was no other Broadcast songs with a similar sound. Well look no further if you were like me, as the main hook of Living Room consists of an arpeggiated almost organ like synth. And of course Trish Keenan is on top form as usual to tie it all together.



And one last revisit to the synthpop side of things. I've been meaning to get some more indie synthy things in the collection (but then again what am I not meant to be adding to it at any point?), and I gotta thank the Simones for reminding me on a semi-regular basis of that. A bit like a musical shopping list.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Illin'

Thought it would be nice to see some pals out shopping yesterday, turns out they were both disease ridden and now I have caught their ills. So this post is going up a little later than usual because I have been asleep 80% of today. Another downtempo selection to ease my aching head.

Vasily Polenov - The Ill Woman (1886)

First off is the last part of the broadcast collection I needed. Their debut on Warp, a collection of singles and B Sides from their singles on Duophonic. It flows incredibly well given its complied nature, and is definitely wearing the 60's influence on it's sleeve, even moreso than on The Noise Made By People. I've loved this song for a long time, much of the album has melancholy lyrics but I very much empathise with the ones on here, especially during my early days of Uni.



Slammed a load of OPN on my phone on a whim the other day, and it's come in mighty handy today. I still need to pick up OPN's newer stuff but I refuse because it's marked up to like £15 at the minute because its so popular. I'm more than content to go over the mountain of material that Rifts has to offer anyway.



And the granddaddy of ambient makes an appearance once again. Dug out Another Green World again after spying a youtube comment comparing this to Fischerspooner's Tone Poem. I do love Eno's work, I just don't post it to much outside of the ambient series because it doesn't exactly fit. Making an exception today and besides, there's some synth stuff going on here so it qualifies.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Chilly Out

Oh boy has the cold come home fast. 0 to frosty mornings overnight, which means it's finally time to do my annual tradition of prepping winter playlists. Let's get right on in.

Gustave Caillebotte - View Of Rooftops (Effect Of Snow) (1878/9)

After my recent trip into the world of what electropop I have in my collection thanks to a soundcloud roundup I've been crushing on my long time favourites Broadcast once again. I've written pretty extensively about my love for them, and I won't repeat myself here, instead enjoy the wintery tones of the penultimate track of Haha Sound.



To that end, a long lost relic from 2008/9 popped back up on that search. Honestly surprised it took so long to come back up, I haven't heard anything from Youth Novels for about 3 years despie daily shuffling o fmy entire library. But it came back, and ho boy these feelings and memories hit pretty hard. I'll have to catch up with Ms. Li sometime soon.



Of course Boards Of Canada were on the lineup for a cold playlist, I'm still amazed at some of the tracks they have tucked away on obscure, often unreleased albums. I've covered a few of the tunes from the aptly named Old Tunes tapes a while ago, but as of right now I'm digging Boc Maxima, and reminding myself of why Whitewater is one of my favourite pieces of BoC.





-Claude Van Foxbat

Will There Be Another Time?

Pleasantly surprised this morning to find out it's the 10th anniversary of one of my all time favourite albums from one of my all time favourite underrated bands: Broadcast's Tender Buttons. It's a very special album indeed, it's much more electronic focused than all their previous efforts, no doubt influenced by the departure of most of the bandmates, leaving Tender Buttons to be made with a skeleton crew of James Cargill and Trish Keenan.

There's plenty of albums that open strongly, but no matter how many times I look over Buttons' tracklist, I'm hard pressed to find a weak link throughout. The actual introduction track I Found The F does it's job perfectly, showing off the new electronic undercurrent in spectacular fashion.



It's not long before Broadcast's previous psychedelic-influenced streak begins to show through though with Black Cat. One of the tracks that were chosen for release from the album, not sure that it's the perfect choice for that given some of the later ones, but it is still fine.



The title track of the LP is very different from all we've heard so far, it plays out almost like a normal Broadcast song before the electronic accompaniment of this album. The real highlight here is the reason for the album's name: it takes it' title from a series of poems by Gertrude Stein which revolve around the rhythm of the words rather than traditional rhymes, which is also the case for some songs on the LP that Keenan delivers absolutely flawlessly, especially here.



I end the post on a rather significant point. America's Boy is the reason I discovered Broadcast many years ago on some music blog, and to this day I fall in love with it again when I hear that intro. I think it is one of the best constructed tracks here, and is also pretty good introduction to the overall sound on offer, showcasing the new and unique electronic aspects as well as Keenan herself in top form.



Broadcast remain one of my all time favourites, and even though their output was limited there hasn't been a single release of theirs that I haven't enjoyed. Unfortunately that limited list of releases will not be getting bigger anytime soon, owing to Trish Keenan's death in 2011. James Cargill has said he has some unreleased Broadcast material recorded before her death that he was preparing for release but there's been no developments on that front in some time. But until them I more than content with their discography up to now, and I hope the wait will not be much longer if this has been your introduction to them.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Automated 5: Future Proof

Thought I might have some downtime after the last post only to be immediately slammed with more dissertation work. So with that in mind here's another quickie to tide you over until the next one.

Roy Lichtenstein - Reverie (1965)
Click here for huge (3318 x 3974 px)

Dug out Broadcast again, and again another example of how tunes grow on you over time. I skipped over this one plenty just because I'm not a huge fan of the intro, but keep on listening and it just gets better. Nailed it in completely Broadcast fashion, Trish Keenan was a talent gone far too soon.



More from FlyLo's Ideas .rar, This one got a lot of press just from the title alone (which is admittedly pretty great) but they kinda let it overshadow the tune itself. Think the other Jazzy cuts from Ideas like Oatmeal Face and Wake Me and you're pretty much good.



Daft Club gets an awful lot of bad press in the DP community. Yeah it's not the best jump coming straight after Discovery but it has it's moments, like that Slum Village mix of Aerodynamic which is quality. Also the intro is a tune I fall in love with every time, from the nostalgia pangs of the Dial-Up intro 'til the very end. Perhaps one of the most lush tracks the Punks have ever made.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Gloomy Sundays Vol. I

Shamelessly stealing an idea me and Adam cooked up after his latest special depressing edition of the wingman series, we're gonna cover some sad songs today in what will hopefully be a semi-regular feature (and what may be the first ever collabrative post in ilictronix history) Tunes and more after the art.

Edward Hopper - Summer In The City (1950)

Starting off with the absolutely crushing end to The Knife's Silent Shout. Here the album dumps all the twisted electropop sensibilities that underlined the whole album and gets real for a second. Like From Off To On some tracks before it, it's a pitch shifted ambient trip in introversion.

"Was it worth it? Could it be worse than this?"

It's probably a bit of a cliché to mention Portishead here, but I'm gonna do it anyway just because a few lines here real resonate with me, and I'd be lying if I didn't say the way Beth Gibbons delivers the lines is pretty much perfect.

"For it's such a lovely day to have to always feel this way"

Broadcast may not be the first band that jumps to mind given their usual sound, but there's more than enough downbeat stuff to go around. I've already given out some love to the lonely vibe of their earlier tune Lights Out, but there's some quality pieces on The Noise Made By People too.

"How wrong I'll be, none of us have anything"

-Claude Van Foxbat




Adam's Picks 


First on my list today is a track from Instra:Mental and I heard this one thursday night when James Blake played it on his residency on Radio 1. I've had this one on repeat for 3 days now and has really sucked my joy. A pretty danceable track with some pretty sinister undertones and a heartbreaking vocal sample makes this track really special. Oh, don't forget those out of this world synths.

"Ill be waiting around, I'm sorry" 

Next we have a new one from Aphex Twin. Off his stellar new album Syro the closing track is a pretty bitter sweet one. It sounds like a rain cloud on a bright and sunny day.




I'm sure your all familiar with this one but its still a favorite downer of mine. Stripped, barebones, and vulnerable is that makes this track memorable for me.

"People get crushed like biscuit crumbs and get laid down in the bitumen" 

-Adam 

Little Things

Got a real hankering today for a certain type of tune I have precious little of. You'll see what I mean in a few, I'll explain a bit more after the art!

Jim Rosenquist - Dog Descending A Staircase (1979)

Right, so it' this kinda song here. I can't really explain it but the Knife's early work is chock full of solid examples, the kind of low budget DIY synth action that my long time music buddy described as "like something from the Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack".



Of course, Plone are a mainstay in this style, their playful electronics are never far when I get this itch, I wish they had more releases to their name though, I could see a tune like this going down well in the current music scene.



And Broadcast even dabbled in it on their electronic oriented LP Tender Buttons. Titled after the Gertrude Stein poem of the same name, the track (and the whole album really) are amazingly well done considering the band at this point was a skeleton crew of Cargill & Keenan.



-Clude Van Foxbat

Le Grand Départ

Things are back to normal here at Van Foxbat HQ, the americousins have left and things are slowly returning to normal. Oh and something about some big bike race in my home county. Here's some French artwork in honour of that!

Gerard Fromanger - Violet d'Egypte

I posted this on the blog Facebook yesterday but it bears repeating, I can't get enough of this track from Squarepusher's latest EP. Been listening to it solidly since about September and I'm still picking out new things on every listen. Easily stands shoulder to shoulder with the best of 'Pusher for sure.



Broadcast have returned on me in a big bad way. Well, they never left but I've had a lot more of them recently. One of the most underrated bands ever, even on the home of experimental electronic Warp. It's an absolute shame we were robbed of Trish Keenan so soon, her voice makes the Broadcast sound complete and is one of my all time favourites alongside Karin Dreijer. I urge you to check them out.



I realised I've not posted much Massive Attack since I got into them, but I found it quite hard to fit them in here because as much as I like to stereotype Portishead as the moody ones in trip hop, Massive have their fair share of downbeat stuff that wouldn't gel with the above. So after much ums and ahs, have a surprisingly light bit from the very end of the very dark Mezzanine.



-Claude Van Foxbat