singles by choice
(albums when it's necessary)
16 November 2015
listening with headphonesAvid Acutus
Funk F·XRII
Linn Klimax DS (Renew)
TEAD Mastergroove
TEAD Vibe 1.5 / Pulse 2
Lehmann Black Cube Linear
Sennheiser HD800

Write-ups of a couple of old Broadcast things, culled from something larger which will never see the light of day.

CD EP

Coming, I suppose, from the same lineage as Music for Films, this hard to find 3” CD has eleven one-to-two minute long instrumental pieces on it, which the title suggests we might wish to use for links or bridges. Whatever they are. I don’t have a CD player any more, so I’m listening to this through my DS, the bits being streamed from a dedicated Solaris 11 zone on the other side of the hallway. The future is now

Some tracks sound like out-takes from Ha Ha Sound (01, 05), whilst some sound like a typewriter looking for its car-keys (03). Some are pure percussion, some only electronics. 04 sounds like a fairground ride having a stroke, and in 06 some milk bottles visit a haunted beach in winter. I’ve probably only listened to this a couple of times before, and I didn’t realize how varied and interesting it was. I’m enjoying it very much. 09 is particularly good: I could easily have done twenty or twenty-five minutes of that one.

This is a properly experimental record by a properly experimental band. But, a band so accomplished that even their one-minute-thirty instrumental experiments smoke most of what other people put out as singles.

4
CD EP

Continuing from volume 1 (that has tracks 01 to 11, this has 12 to 21) we kick off with something that was thrown out of Ha Ha Sound for spitting beer at a bouncer, then whiz through a lumpy dabble on a keyboard while someone tries to start a car in the background. Next Pram play a song in a swimming baths while we listen underwater. Another groovy synth riff, and we’re back at the Pram gig, but now all their gear is on the blink. More synths. Tune up the drum kit. A coffee percolator goes nuts in a tiled bathroom, Brian Eno dreams of melody, and an assembly of small cranes fail to build a wooden tower while a giant strokes a nylon cat. Fin.

3