Albums of 2015 #3 Public Service Broadcasting - The Race For Space

Here are the 5 essential things you need to know about Public Service Broadcasting’s Race For Space album, our third favourite record of 2015.

1. It’s a concept album and the concept is the US-Soviet space race of the late 50’s to early 70’s.

2. Thematically there are links to the ideas presented on the bands tune Everest – that of human endeavour and man’s desire to attain that which has been unattainable.

3. If you haven’t yet heard what Public Broadcasting do, this is a fine introduction. The band mix archive vocal samples, this time taken from the astronauts themselves in space as well as the control desk on earth, together with music. It’s a very visual album. There are no traditional songs as such, the closest you get to that is some ethereal atmospheric warbling from The Smoke Fairies as guest vocalists on one track, but it bears a closer relationship to film soundtracks.

4. The music fits the ambience of space perfectly – from the suspenseful The Other Side  where Apollo 8 orbits the moon and loses radio contact through to the controlled hyperactivity of the control room on Go!

5. It’s bloody marvellous, weirdly emotional and as far as 2015 releases go, unique.

Public Service Broadcasting - Go!

Our 5 Favourite Songs Of 2015

Of course we know there’s still 22 days of 2015 left, which theoretically means that our favourite song of the year could yet to be released, but experience tells us that’s pretty damn unlikely (although Låpsley came close in December 2013 with Station). So without further ado, here are the 5 songs that have made us laugh the most, cry the most and most importantly, dance the most. There's been a lot of dancing.

Song Of The Year - Petite Meller – Baby Love 

What we said in January 2015:

“One of the brightest things about pop music is its occasional ability to dazzle by throwing in the unexpected and for it all to make sense and be utterly brilliant. Such is the new video and song from French singer Petite Meller, who up to now has been skirting around the edges but never hitting the bullseye. That all changes with new tune Baby Love which throws in giraffes, big hats, flamingo impressions, dancing and saxophone playing children and music that hits the ‘it’s good to be alive’ button with some force.

If you watch this and don’t feel deliriously happy afterwards then something is seriously wrong. We're handing the award for best pop video January 2015 to Petite Meller right now”



The Runners Up

Oh Wonder – Landslide

What we said in July 2015:

“We’re sorry, but all of you geology boffins are going to be a little disappointed, because the song isn’t anything about an earth movement that leads to the triggering of a ground failure in a downwards direction. Instead, it’s a soothing and infinitely pretty tune of comfort and friendship, effectively saying ‘keep your chin up,’ but in a rather more sensitive way than that.”



Mura Masa ft Nao – Firefly 

What we said in November 2015:

"Take one listen to Firefly (one of the underground pop songs of 2015) and you’ll understand. He makes crisp, glitchy, electronic dance music that has one eye on the dancefloor, one eye on the headphones and one eye on the pop arena. Oh, that’s three eyes, but that’s the point. Mura Masa does things just that little bit differently."



Oh Wonder – White Blood

What we said in June 2015:

"We live in an internet enabled world that seems to become ever more callous, ever more judgemental, ever more unhopeful. Listen to this song. Go and hug someone. Tell them that you love them. For without hope and love we’re lost. This tune will make you feel that love."



Public Service Broadcasting – The Other Side

What we said in August 2015:

"The Other Side just oozes atmosphere, with the mounting tension in Mission Control becoming the central force of the piece. Despite the professional and controlled delivery from the announcer, you can hear the joy in his voice as Apollo 8 re-establishes contact and the music perfectly matches that happiness as it gushes forward in celebratory style. Absolutely brilliant and surprisingly emotional."

Has Streaming Changed The Way We Listen To Albums?

Over this weekend, conversation, as it often does with us, turned to music, and the fact we’re getting towards the end of the year, which means the inevitable best of / favourite lists that those of us who like to obsess over such things will be compiling and comparing.

“What are your favourite albums of 2015 so far?” we asked.

“Probably the Sleater-Kinney and Julia Holter records,” our friend stated, before adding “mind you I’ve only heard each one twice, so I might change my mind.”

It was the moment we jolted and knocked our cup of coffee over in shock.

“Twice? TWICE? How can you even make a judgement that they come anywhere near being your favourite if you’ve only heard them twice?”

“Well, put it this way, what are your favourite films of 2015?”

“Erm, possibly Selma, or The Theory of Everything, wait…was that even 2015. We quite enjoyed Unfriended as well - not that that's going to be on any end of year lists. ”

“And how many times have you seen them?”

“Just once, at the cinema.”

“Exactly, you’ve only seen them once but you know they are your favourites, so the same applies to albums.”

It’s a strong argument, but it left a nagging feeling with us. Why do we feel so cross that someone can define an album as being one of their favourites having spent so little time with it and yet it’s fine for us to do exactly the same with a film? It’s something we’re struggling with. It might be something to do with a film having a narrative that once known has a lesser impact on subsequent views, whereas generally albums don’t, although interestingly small children love to read the same book over and over even though they know what’s going to happen. Also, it would be very expensive to see the same newly released film many times at the cinema, because unlike albums we have to pay per play.

In the pre-streaming age and assuming you weren’t illegally downloading, it wasn’t possible to listen to every album ever released. In any one year we might buy and listen to maybe 30 albums (far more than most of the people we knew) and hear a few more from friends. But with each purchase, we’d play it many times, even the duff ones. Why? Because we’d invested money in these things, so we were bloody well going to try and find something we liked – even if it was the fact that the NWA record had a LOT of swearing in it and therefore offended our parents.

But now there’s streaming. Spotify has changed everything. Every album, anyplace, anytime; and if it’s no good we can just move on. This sounds amazing! This is awesome! Our listening can diversify like we never imagined! In fact screw albums, now we can just listen to playlists created by curators with supposedly great taste and skip the crap completely. Maybe 2015 will be the year when nobody publishes a favourite albums list and everyone just publishes their top 10 playlists? 

Except we still find this all a little bit sad. Because with listeners jumping from one thing to the next, not spending time with anything, there’s no deeper emotional investment. Everything has turned into a series of musical one night stands and emotionless sonic fucks, with everyone comparing notes at the end of the year about which was the best. 

So what about us?

We’ve analysed our own listening habits:

When we’ve published our own end of year album list on the blog in the past we’ve tried to quantify what we think a ‘favourite’ is. That is, rather than just a qualitative decision made at one snapshot in time, we’ve defined it as being the records we’ve listened to the most in that year. To ensure accuracy we’ve kept a tally of how many times we’ve played albums released in that particular year. 

Now we fully understand the arguments that if you call a record your favourite you don’t have to have played it the most – sometimes you reserve things for special moments.  One of our favourite drinks is a great glass of red wine, but we drink far more water than wine. Although that’s a silly analogy really, because if red wine didn’t give us a hangover we might well drink more of it. 

However, our point is that if just like any relationship, if you like something a lot, you’ll probably want to spend a lot of time with it. 

And as we’ve geekily noted down and added up virtually every single album we listen to (including part plays), and since we now listen to more music through streaming than any other form, we’ve come to the following conclusions:

1. We still spend about the same amount of time listening to music that we always have done. We also still listen to mainly albums. Playlists are something we dive into a little, but we still prefer radio for that additional human element when mixing different artists together, in particular to give context and information. We find playlist a little dry.

2. Although we spend about the same amount of time, we listen to a greater variety of music than ever before. The internet can enable you to bury down amongst your own narrow tunnnels or it can enable you to expand and experience the widest of scopes, We've chosen the second route.

3.. By virtue of 1 and 2 above this means we are listening to many records far fewer times than we used to. In fact there are a multitude of albums this year that we’ve only played once. If they didn’t grab us first time we moved on. There’s always something else demanding to be heard and Spotify allows us to do that. It’s a bit like Tinder with music. First impressions count more than ever.

You’d think that increasing our diversity of listening has made life even better, but here's the killer - it doesn’t. It makes us feel like a musical slag, constantly with our knickers down, allowing anybody and anyone to penetrate us. There's less love. Less depth. Less connection. This is a pretty sorry state of affairs. 

After all the first time we heard Radiohead’s brilliant OK Computer (pre-streaming) we just thought it was OK-ish. But not as good as The Bends. Or even Pablo Honey. But because we’d purchased it and that was all we could afford to buy for a while, we stuck with it, immersed ourselves in it and slowly realised its staggering power. If we’d heard it for the first time now, we’d have probably moved on and never returned.

Having said that, we’re still listening to a lot of records a lot of times. It’s why we think they’re our favourites. You want stats? OK here’s some examples. The Staves released their record If I Was in January. We’ve listened to that 42 times this year so far. Public Service Broadcasting’s Race For Space 38.33 times. Lana Del Rey’s Honeymoon (released just a few weeks ago) 15 times. So whilst Spotify has enabled us to listen to more and more, we’re still valuing that complete listening experience – those records that given the time you can find more and more in. But inevitably, with this new way of listening some that don’t grab us instantly will be lost, and that’s a big shame.

Which reminds us, we only listened to that Sleater-Kinney album a couple of times. Maybe it's time to give that another go?

Public Service Broadcasting - The Other Side (Video)

Whereas Public Service Broadcasting’s debut album was formed of a collection of tracks with no conceptual link other than the band’s absorbing use of vocal samples, their second long player The Race For Space buried itself deep in concept album territory in a similar manner to their earlier EP The War Room. Compressing a number of stories concerning the American / Soviet contest to put men in space and on the moon, it's a truly wonderful listen and as we come to nearly ¾ of the way through the year we can say with some confidence that it will be featuring pretty high up on our Albums of 2015 list come December.

From it comes this video for our favourite song on the record. The Other Side just oozes atmosphere, with the mounting tension in Mission Control becoming the central force of the piece. Despite the professional and controlled delivery from the announcer, you can hear the joy in his voice as Apollo 8 re-establishes contact and the music perfectly matches that happiness as it gushes forward in celebratory style. Absolutely brilliant and surprisingly emotional.

Public Service Broadcasting - The Other Side (Video)

Geoffrey Went Too Far - An Important Film For Gig Attendees

Today we bring you a short intermission.

During the course of this intermission we’d like to broadcast the following Public Information Film. 

Originally broadcast before Public Service Broadcasting’s gigs on their recent tour, in support of their second (superb) album The Race For Space, it delivers its message with a neat touch of humour.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin.

Are you a Geoffrey or a Ralph? 

Geoffrey Went Too Far

Public Service Broadcasting - Go! (Video)

Public Service Broadcasting have wasted no time in delivering their second (not sophomore damn you – we’re British) album, The Race For Space. It's a record that finds the band developing their found sound concept to the Moon and beyond. It’s an absorbing listen, perfectly capturing the spirit of human endeavour and adventure above the clouds. Our two favourite tracks from the record are the gently euphoric The Other Side, which soundtracks Apollo 8 orbiting the Moon, losing contact on the far side and the silent painful wait for it to reappear, and Go an upbeat tune that already has us doing the moonwalk (either Neil Armstrong or Michael Jackson style).

Now there’s a video for Go, which you’ll find below. The track features archive sound from the control desk and flight of Apollo 11, the first spaceflight that landed humans on the Moon. We dare you not to want to jig around a little and punch the air as the voices exclaim the word “go” like hyped up robots. Describing how the track came together J. Willgoose, Esq. of Public Service Broadcasting says: “The first time I heard the call-outs and the replies, there was such excitement and frenetic-ness to it. It was obvious to me that this was going to be a fast-paced song and it was going to be called ‘Go!’”

Public Service Broadcasting - Go!

Victorious Festival 2014 - Preview

In the over-crowded UK festival market any new entrants need to have a strong unique selling point. Victorious Festival, set in Breaking More Waves home city of Portsmouth has a pretty simple one – price. Early bird tickets retailed at just £15 per day before they were increased to £20 showing that it is seemingly possible to run a festival with some reasonably heavyweight names topping the bill (this year sees the likes of Dizzee Rascal, Seastick Steve, Naughty Boy, 2 Many DJs and Tom Odell) without charging exorbitant prices.

How does the festival achieve this? Some of the answers seem to include ramming in the punters, using plenty of cheap or unpaid local artists to flesh out the line-up and by the organisers maximising income by running the bars themselves rather than another company. And talking of alcohol let’s be honest here, Portsmouth as a city likes a drink; last year’s event just couldn’t cope with demand and if those in charge have any sense they’ll be increasing the bar lengths, numbers and staff for 2014.

Bars reaching capacity was just one of a number of teething problems the festival had in its first year as Victorious Festival (having previously run as Victorious Vintage) when it was held in the unusual setting of the historic dockyard in Portsmouth; food stalls had long queues and on the first of the two days it was reported that many of them ran out of food completely. Also the portaloo layout appeared to have been designed by someone with very little experience of festivals, meaning that servicing and queues became problematic. However, given the bargain price and general good-spirited nature of the event, these issues didn’t particularly detract.

However, 2014 finds the event relocating onto Southsea seafront, giving more space and more capacity for everything, hopefully ironing out the problems from 2013.

Being a city based festival Victorious will populated by many locals and its line-up and attractions are curated very much with a something for everyone ideology, but with a strong bias to b-list Brit-pop and beyond bands; Shed Seven, Menswear, Ocean Colour Scene, Razorlight, The Pigeon Detectives and Mark Morris from The Bluetones all appear. You’ll also find X-Factor contestant Lucy Spraggon, alt-rock from British Sea Power, electro hip-hop from Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip playing their second to last show ever plus Beatles and Rolling Stones tribute bands.

So you can take your pick from those or the many other artists on the bill, or you can try the headphone disco, watch skaters and riders demos in Southsea Skate Park, visit the nearby  the D-Day museum, watch the sharks at the Blue-Reef Aquarium, explore Southsea Castle, visit the boutique market stalls, the real ale festival or the kids arena.

Alternatively you can try and catch the following Breaking More Waves approved acts. See you down the front for these? (Line up clashes permitting)

Sophie Ellis-Bextor : Castle Stage  (Saturday)

She might be best known for her disco pop hits such as Murder On The Dance Floor, Take Me Home and Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) but Sophie’s 2014 Ed Harcourt produced album Wanderlust is the finest work of her career – an accomplished and mature record that takes in Eastern European folk, fairytale and mid-life crisis reference points and wraps them up into a captivating and enchanting listen. We suspect it will find a place on our end of year favourite album list.



Public Service Broadcasting : Seaside Stage (Saturday)

One of the great independent success stories of 2013, Public Service Broadcasting’s unique performances mash up video footage, guitars, vocal samples and a sense of humour to deliver a show that wins people over wherever they play.



Slow Club :  Acoustic Stage (Sunday)

From their early d-i-y country folk outings to their latest record Complete Surrender, Slow Club’s music has evolved, boldly stepping into a new soulful world whilst retaining their gorgeous vocal interplay and tenderness. Watch out for the bands often comical banter with the audience and expect more than the odd goose-bump moment as Rebecca sings.



Kassassin Street : Seaside Stage (Sunday)

“Capturing Eastern mysticism, psychedelia and a free flowing looseness, this five-piece have an exhilarating vibrancy and energy to their sound.” That’s how we previously described indie rockers Kassassin Street. That sounds about right. What we didn’t say was that they are also quite possibly Portsmouth’s finest live band - expect grooves and noise.



Eloise Keating : Acoustic Stage (Sunday)

Local singer songwriter Eloise Keating picked up her first Hype Machine listed blog appearance on Breaking More Waves and has subsequently been featured on a number of respected sites site as Line of Best Fit and The Von Pip Musical Express with her Great Gatsby inspired song Be My Ghost (The Green Light). Since then she’s been taken under the wing by same people behind one of our favourite (and ever on it) boutique record labels Duly Noted (IYES, The Night VI, Black Honey etc) and is beavering away writing new material. Victorious Festival is a chance to hear Eloise road-test some of these songs in an acoustic form before fuller electronic versions surface as well as perhaps a cover or two.





We’ll be carrying a full review of Victorious Festival 2014 shortly after it finishes. It takes place on Southsea seafront on the 23rd and 24th August 2014. Tickets info can be found using this link.

12 From '13 - Some Of The Best Songs Featured On Breaking More Waves This Year

We’re geting ready to say goodbye to 2013 as its sun begins to set. Before we do so, here are some 2013 blog related facts then some music:

1. This year we’ve uploaded close to 400 blog posts. 

2. 400 posts is quite a lot of words (the equivalent of a novel) and a lot of music (the equivalent of about 40 albums worth). 

3. If you had read and listened to everything we've posted in 2013, at a guess, it would have taken you about 45 hours of your life - the equivalent of a working week. 

4. Its difficult to quantify, but we reckon we've spent the equivalent of between 7 and 8 working weeks on Breaking More Waves this year (if you include listening to music that we may / may not include on the blog and other blog related activities such as emailing artists / labels and their representatives, a bit of social media stuff, but excluding gigs and festivals). Yet despite being quite time heavy, having to balance it against the day job, family etc, at no stage has it ever felt like work in terms of the pressures and responsibilities that our real day job places upon us. We've enjoyed everything that comes from writing Breaking More Waves, probably more so this year than any year before. 

5. We've seen a fair few well known blogs give up in 2013 due to the usual reasons of lack of motivation (see this post on Chromewaves for one example) or some that were on hiatus then vanished with no real public explanation (what did happen to The Recommender?). Then there were others that moved on to do other exciting things; our favourite girl on the block / in a field / up a mountain Flying With Anna closed down to open a new chapter (and blog) in her life as she set off on her travels. And so after 5 and a half years of Breaking More Waves is also stopping. Till tomorrow that is. We need a break. But 24 hours should be enough. See you at 8.30am on New Years Day?

And that's it. We’re closing our year by featuring 12 of our favourite (and therefore 'best') songs we've featured from 2013, each one in video form. For once, we 're providing no commentary on the individual tracks, we think we've said all we want to say for one year.

This isn’t a definitive list as we’ve chosen 1 song from each month’s worth of posts, meaning that on really good months a number of great songs have had to be sacrificed and some songs that we adore haven’t made the cut as they never had a video.

If you missed any of these gems we highly recommend you press play. The artists who have created these beauties deserve at least that.

We wish you a very happy New Year. We’ll be back tomorrow in 2014.

Twelve from thirteen = the ones.

Thank you for reading. 

January 

Indiana - Bound



February

Public Service Broadcasting - Signal 30



March

Lorde - Royals



April

Lana Del Rey - Young And Beautiful



May

John Newman - Love Me Again



June

Chvrches - Gun



July

London Grammar - Strong



August

Flyte - Over and Out



September

FKA Twigs - Papi Pacify



October

Mononoke - Alice



November

Wolf Alice - Blush



December

Laura Doggett - Sometimes

Albums of the Year 2013 #13 - Public Service Broadcasting - Inform Educate Entertain

At number 13 on the Breaking More Waves album of the year list is Inform Educate Entertain by Public Service Broadcasting. “To teach the lessons of the past through the music of the future,” is the objective of J Wilgoose Esq and Wrigglesworth and they achieve this by overlaying extracts of propaganda and information films from yesteryear onto their mix of indie rock and computer instrumentals with stirring effect.

Inform Educate Entertain is probably the only record you’ll ever hear that credits samples from a 1936 Royal Mail film called Night Mail, Studio Canal’s 1953 film The Conquest of Everest and US road safety films including The Bottle & The Throttle and None For The Road. It’s a playful, quirky and stimulating record that could loosely be called a concept album in so far as the LP is built around the idea of sampling voices from the past, albeit the tunes cover many different subject matters. However most importantly it’s an enjoyable eccentrically British piece of work that sounds unlike anything else released this year.

Public Service Broadcasting - Spitfire (Video)

Public Service Broadcasting - Elfstedentocht (Parts 1 & 2)

How do you experience music? Do you just listen to it? Or as you take the sounds in do they create visual images for you? Or is it something more instinctive than that – do you FEEL it?

Public Service Broadcasting is a band who operate for us on all three levels. They’re fantastic to listen to; with such varied instrumentation from electronic wizardry to guitar riffs a plenty - not forgetting those unusual vocal samples from old information films. Plus they’re very visual, using old video footage that blends seamlessly with the music both on the internet and in a live setting. But more importantly, as all the best music does, they make us feel something. On Everest they made us feel exhilarated and uplifted, on The War Room EP they made us feel melancholic, somewhat grief stricken and also strangely inspired and on Signal 30 they made us feel like jumping in the car and breaking speed limits (despite the safety briefings on the vocal samples). Let's hope they never use voices from a porn film on one of their songs.

Now J Willgoose, Esq. and Wigglesworth have released 2 new tracks that act in tandem with each other. Once again the combination of what they’re doing makes us feel wonderfully invigorated, only this time also proving that language is no barrier in music.

Elfstedentocht parts 1 and 2 are two very different pieces about a European speed skating event that takes place in the province of Friesland in Northern Holland. With Dutch vocal samples (complete with English translations on You Tube) both tracks have us reaching for our skates and wishing there really was snow and ice outside. Part 1 is Signal 30’s heavier short tempered cousin, all pumping muscles and titanic rock riffs, leaving you feeling gratefully exhausted. Part 2 is a gentler affair, with the visuals that focus on the snowy landscapes. The music is more flowing and almost hallucogenic, reminiscent in places of an indie rock version of Candi Staton’s You Got the Love (check out around 2.50)

Neither Elfstedentocht Parts 1 or 2 can be found on PSB’s debut album Inform Educate Entertain, but if you haven’t heard that yet we highly recommend you skate on over and give that a cool spin as well.

Elfstedentocht Part 1

Elfstedentocht Part 2

Public Service Broadcasting - Night Mail (Video)

One of the great independent musical success stories of the year in the UK is that of Public Service Broadcasting. Let’s be clear that when we state success we mean both artistically (their debut album Inform Educate Entertain is innovative, unique and has a sense of being beyond fashion) and commercially (it managed to find itself in the UK Top 40 on release, which for a relatively ‘small’ band is some achievement).

Yet despite their accomplishments Public Service Broadcasting haven’t sat back on their laurels. No, this duo have spent what seems like the whole year on the road and it doesn’t stop yet, having just played some shows with the Manic Street Preachers before they set out on yet another headline tour of their own.

Public Service Broadcasting is a lesson to every band who spends more time p*ssing around on the internet trying to get Facebook likes than writing, recording or performing.  The learning point is simple - Facebook likes are undemanding to give and utterly transient. Real fans invest in a band by coming to shows and buying the band’s music and by telling other people about what they’re missing out on. If as an artist you’re not growing that real tangible fan base, you’re doing something wrong. Public Service Broadcasting have developed real fans by concentrating on the writing, recording and performing – the promotion and social media then almost becomes organic. In the old days they called it word of mouth.

With the endless gigs comes the release of another song from Inform Educate Entertain. Night Mail combines words from a 1936 documentary and a W.H Arden poem, meshing them seamlessly to the Public Service Broadcasting mix of guitars and electronics that pulse and rock creating a tune to lose yourself in. You really don’t need the video for Night Mail – shut your eyes and the soundtrack places you in one of those carriages steaming along, taking the letters and bags of mail all over the country, but it's nice to see J. Willgoose and Wrigglesworth make an appearance in their own video for once.

All stand clear – here comes Public Service Broadcasting.

Public Service Broadcasting - Night Mail (Video)

Public Service Broadcasting - Theme From PSB

The groundswell of love for Public Service Broadcasting (J.Willgoose seen performing in Brighton’s superb Resident Records store above) in the UK has been rather wonderful to watch this year. The reason for it? To use a marketing term – unique selling point. We really can’t think of another group like them.

As somebody on You Tube recently commented “It's like wandering through a forest and finding paradise, but it's a small one that no one else save for a few people know about.” This is true, but paradise is growing. Their use of vocal samples that completely integrate with the music, their quintessential polite Englishness, their emotive and moving live shows that also make you dance and laugh, their ability to sound like a BBC Radio 4 documentary, a rock band and a pop group all at the same time, these are just some of the reasons why Public Service Broadcasting are becoming many UK music aficionados new favourite band.

Theme From Public Service Broadcasting is the new single, taken from the debut album Inform Educate Entertain and is released on 12th August, including on a rather snazzy pink vinyl. It’s probably the only song that you’ll hear all year with a 1958 speech from pioneering American news broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, some jerky cartoon rhythms that you can dance to but would never be heard in a nightclub and a banjo that doesn’t give any hint of Mumford & Sons. Really, what’s not to like about that combo? 

Public Service Broadcasting - Theme From PSB

Hello. We're Back.

Hello. We’re back.

When last week we posted that we were taking a few days off over the Bank Holiday weekend and suggested that we were a little exhausted, we had no idea that the zero energy feeling we were experiencing was the beginning of a nasty bout of illness.

So our short break became nearly a week dosed up on (legal) drugs – our longest period of unplanned absence from the blog for a very long time. Consider it if you will our own version of the Test Card. (Those of you too young to know what the Test Card was, go Google it and get yourselves an education)

Thankfully though, we’ve proven that song by The Verve very wrong and shown that (if you’re taking the right type) the drugs do work. So now it's foot to the floor for Breaking More Waves. Or rather we're at least up into third gear and gently accelerating to fourth as we just shake off the last few aches, pains, stresses, sweats and other unwanted sickness attributes.

So before we get back into new singles, artists and our coverage of festivals, let’s start with a duo that together with the Ibuprofen, Codeine, Aspirin and Night Nurse have been keeping us going the last few days. Public Service Broadcasting’s debut album Inform Educate Entertain was released this week and has kept us feeling alive with its very unique, slightly quirky, very British (without ever being Brit Pop) take on pop music, although we use pop music in very much the broadest sense of the word. Taking the idea of using old public information films and archive footage and weaving them into their own sonic tapestry, Public Service Broadcasting don’t create songs as such, but pieces. But those pieces are made of gold.

Incredibly, for a band that are still ‘a small band’ the news today is that this week's UK mid-week album sales chart finds PSB at number 19. Now we know all the arguments about the chart not being relevant anymore, but if they aren’t relevant why in the last month have they been reported on in the national news at least twice as major headlines? And we’re pretty sure that anyone who has gone out this week and actually purchased the Public Service Broadcasting album will be pleased as punch to find that this oddball, multi-layered, eccentrically brilliant album sitting in amongst the likes of the Justin Timberlake’s and Rihanna’s of this world. It’s the triumph of the underdog. It's like a fine looking pair of brown corduroy trousers in a sea of denim - and that's something we can subscribe to.

If you’re passing a local record store this week (or if you’re just shopping online) this is a good week for new albums in many genre's. For dance pop fans Little Boots’ Nocturnes far surpasses her debut effort (one of the best pop albums of the year so far), for those who like intense focused noisy guitars Savages’ Silence Yourself will do the trick and for those who want something just that little bit different and that little bit special, Public Service Broadcasting is what you need. All three have certainly been our musical medicine during our malaise, why not give yourself a pick me up as well?

Public Service Broadcasting are currently out on the road on a huge UK tour, we highly recommend catching them, for whilst they may not have a huge budget to spend, every aspect of their show is carefully thought through, both musically and visually, plus the band have the most unusual method of in between song banter you’ll probably ever hear. We're saying no more than that. 

Here’s the title track from the LP as well as the stunning Spitfire in visual form. Originally  from the War Room EP it thankfully has been included on the album as well.

Public Service Broadcasting - Inform Educate Entertain

Public Service Broadcasting - Spitfire

Public Service Broadcasting - Signal 30

This post is probably our most overdue ever. Public Service Broadcasting aka the wonderfully named  J. Willgoose, Esq. and Wrigglesworth are a band (band doesn’t seem the right word - project seems to suit them better) that have intrigued and engaged us with their past releases such as the strangely moving War Room EP and Everest, yet they’ve never made it onto the blog. The closest they got was on a playlist we compiled for Skeletory Blog which you can see and wrap your ears around here. Their eccentrically playful concoction of samples from public information films and archive footage combined with distinctive guitar sounds, electronics and drums have won them plenty of plaudits including many of our favourite blogs (The Metaphorical Boat and Alphabet Bands in particular have been big supporters) and the likes of Tom Robinson from BBC 6 Music and Janice Long on Radio 2. Without giving away too much of how votes were cast we can also reveal that PSB (yes they share their initials with one of our favourite electronic pop duo’s – hi Neil, hi Chris) also very nearly made the Blog Sound of 2013 long list. Oh, OK, we’ll admit it they were just one vote away from inclusion.

So today we’re righting our wrongs and tipping our hat in apology to Willgoose and Wrigglesworth as we feature their latest offering Signal 30. This time the vocal samples are from US road safety films including The Bottle & The Throttle and None For The Road. The last time we can remember a musical connection to road safety was pop DJ Jimmy Saville and his ‘clunk click every trip’ advert and in hindsight young people in the car probably had more to worry about than just a seatbelt, so it’s good to see Public Service Broadcasting bringing the thrills of speed and music back together in a far less worrying but exhilarating way. Signal 30 powers its way through three minutes and twenty seconds of foot to the floor guitar work that bodes extremely well for the bands mammoth 46 date tour starting this Thursday in Winchester. Breaking More Waves will be in attendance at that gig (as well as their Brighton show in May) so watch out for tweeted excitement over here.

The album Inform - Educate - Entertain is released on Test Card Recordings (probably the most appropriate name we could imagine for their label) on May 6th. Certainly in our case its release is highly anticipated.

Public Service Broadcasting - Signal 30