TEARS IN THE TYPING POLL: ILM Artist Poll #114 - BROADCAST (Results Thread)

"THAN my typical post"

I expect it to get busier once we get to tracks that more than a few people know.

Nearing the end of the working week here? It is great that Mother is the milky way stands as a legitimate release now, I was listening to it yesterday while on the rove in the fleeting sunshine and its such a joyful, light tip. Absolutely the ying to Cult's Yang. Or the the way round.

Small Song IV was one of the last songs I cut from my ballot. The Pendulum EP is so great.

this one doesn't have many more votes, but think we can all hum it

https://i.imgur.com/uhyv1yU.jpg

56. O How I Miss You
From Haha Sound, 2003
Fan-made video by Kent Hernández on YouTube
70 Points, 5 Votes

this fan video is excellent, btw.

song is such a lovely Beach Boys pastiche

https://i.imgur.com/2KdaX9C.jpg

55. Test Area
From Echo's Answer, 1999. Compiled on The Future Crayon, 2006.
Fan-made video by The Mystery Machine on YouTube
82 Points, 4 Votes

Does this thread get *quieter* during the actual rollout bits? Don't be shy lurkers, if you're out there. Your contributions will almost certainly be less stoopid my typical post. :)

Alright! Test Area (and Echo's Answer) blew me away when it came out. I'd been a fan since the first single, but it had been 3 years of waiting since Book Lovers. I'd loved those 1996 records, but they sounded so jammy and loose on Test Area in a way they hadn't before. And to put Echo's Answer out as the A-side of the first single after a 3 year wait seemed so ballsy. I got to seem them a few weeks later in NYC at a Warp 10 year thing (with Plone and Plaid) and the show put those two new songs into context with the rest of the stuff that would be coming out the next year.

I think Test Area suffered in terms of votes as it doesn't really get good until the second half. those who did have it on their ballot ranked it fairly highly though.

https://i.imgur.com/EdRpZhE.jpg

54. Distant Call
From Come On Let's Go, 2000. Compiled on The Future Crayon, 2006.
Audio on YouTube
91 Points, 6 Votes

Listening to the playlist of this rollout. It's a nice mixtape of their musique concret / instrumental side, in what I assume will essentially be a massive preamble to the emergence of Trish as the singular frontwoman of the group.

It's interesting to hear it this way - all the later-period stuff first. In my mind it frees this stuff from the tragic sense of loss* and instead presents it as the essential underpinning of what they're all about. It also really kills the idea that Broadcast were in any way in the shadow of Stereolab - they were clearly up to their own thing.

*I know Trish was alive for (and appears on) these releases, but her death still cast these albums in a different light - what might have felt more like a detour in their output wound up being the defining characteristic of their late period. Maybe part of why I've never really connected with Witch Cults or anything after is that I can't help but think about what was extinguished. I appreciate the albums but it's hard not to think that Broadcast went out with an extended, multi-album whimper.

It's interesting to hear it this way - all the later-period stuff first. In my mind it frees this stuff from the tragic sense of loss* and instead presents it as the essential underpinning of what they're all about. It also really kills the idea that Broadcast were in any way in the shadow of Stereolab - they were clearly up to their own thing.

I didn't properly articulate this, because it's *not* all later-period stuff so far although a lot of it is. When you mix in some of the weird and/or brief instrumental bits from the early EPs and albums it only reveals more strongly that this element has been there all along. But the track rollout is really putting an emphasis on this element of their sound and I expect there's going to be a moment in this rollout when things snap into strong melodies, rhythms, traditional songs.

this is kind of the opposite to how I feel about Broadcast, but I am generally much more drawn to texture than tunes, this is why I had Witch Cults down as my number one, it's all feeling with not that many tunes getting in the way. but of course it's also amazing that the same band can appeal to different people in such different ways.

we do have some more melodic stuff coming up today, though not that soon.

https://i.imgur.com/PIoCgTa.jpg

53. Make My Sleep His Song
From Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age, 2009
Fan-made video by HeatRayz Video on YouTube
113 Points, 7 Votes

this is one of my favourites, from any era

https://i.imgur.com/yyCyFPp.jpg

52. Ritual / Looking In
From Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age, 2009
Fan-made video by me on YouTube
114 Points, 6 Votes

Great looking images!

I made the linked video for "Ritual," I am very pleased with it but nobody else seems to like it, so ymmv, etc. it's a heavily edited / processed video I filmed from the front of a tram on Hong Kong Island.

xp thanks Moka!

That image from Theorem is so eerie and great, I reckon it must be a photo from the set, as I'm sure the angle is different in the film (been a while).

Not the last one either, should really see the film now I have a folder full of images from it.

https://i.imgur.com/Ap8r5Mq.jpg

51. Dave's Dream
From Extended Play, 2000. Compiled on The Future Crayon, 2006.
Fan-made video by blakaraka on YouTube
123 Points, 7 Votes

Camaraderie: your video really really works, hats off

Thanks, I think it needs some kind of upscaling and it may find wider acceptance.

Meanwhile, Dave's Dream, you hear some music described as "cinematic" but this is somewhere way beyond that.

https://i.imgur.com/MrJH0GP.jpg

50. You And Me In Time
From Tender Buttons, 2005
Audio on YouTube
124 Points, 11 Votes

wonderful little song

Just looking at my list and I'm sad to see I had Oh How I Miss You so low. Beautiful song. Probably should have had You Me In Time higher as well, but they just have too many amazing songs.

https://i.imgur.com/esrcNZx.jpg

49. In Here The World Begins
From Mother Is The Milky Way, 2009
Audio on YouTube
130 Points, 11 Votes

I'd never heard 60 before, sublime drone and curious phrasing. I say never heard, they may well have played it the last time i saw them at Queen Elizabeth on the South Bank. Was it just the two of them in the 2010 live incarnation? I wish I had clearer memories of that show, I don't think I had heard mother is the milky way at that point and recall quite a few unfamiliar songs. And brilliant visuals.

https://i.imgur.com/pQynuPf.jpg

48. I See, So I See So
From Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age, 2009
Official video by Julian House on YouTube
135 Points, 9 Votes

until I found this I was sure that there were only two official Broadcast music videos

Seriously, go watch that video.

Anyway,

tine for our first first place vote!

https://i.imgur.com/yWuqfGP.jpg

47. Inside Out
From Broadcast/Focus Group - Study Series 04: Familiar Shapes and Noises, 2010
Fan-made video by The Mystery Machine on YouTube
137 Points, 7 Votes, 1 First Place Vote

going to have to speed things up a little if I want to get today done

https://i.imgur.com/NLjWxSk.jpg

46. Hammer Without A Master
From VA - We Are Reasonable People, 1998. Compiled on The Future Crayon, 2006.
Audio on YouTube
144 Points, 11 Votes

The first thing I heard from them was "Hammer Without a Master" and eventually I stopped waiting for them to make anything that good. I do think they're starting to catch up to their hype with the new album, though. - MindInRewind (Barry Bruner) - Nov 7, 2005

Inside Out is great, worthy of a first place vote for sure. I love that whole EP, best distillation of the Broadcast vs Focus Group aesthetic.

https://i.imgur.com/RYlbSBh.jpg

45. Phantom
From Living Room Single, 1996. Compiled on Work And Non Work, 1997.
Fan-made video by Rune on YouTube
152 Points, 10 Votes

here's what I wrote about Phantom on the other thread

In early 1996 I was in the habit of buying a few 7" singles every week from Magpie Records in Worcester, sometimes from bands I'd heard on the radio, sometimes I just liked the cover, as I did with this one.
I liked 'Living Room' fine, but 'Phantom' just changed everything. Never heard anything like it before or since, that clockwork rhythm, it sounded like the 'fairground' demo tracks on my uncle's Hammond(?) organ, but with the Theremin(?) making it sound like it was possessed by mournful spirits. The portal for me not just to Broadcast but to avant-garde music.

CaAL I just watched your video and it’s perfect, upscale my ass, the crunchy gritty video and digital stutters make it magical. Completely nails the vibe of the track.

Some great stuff here. Make Him Sleep My Song is lovely and weird. Hammer Without A Master might have been the first Broadcast song I ever heard on that wonderful compilation CD. Voted it fairly high because nostalgia. Which I feel with this band is very, very appropriate. Love this. Thanks poll runners.

Ah no, looking at the dates I had Work And Non Work first

here's one some people will be happy about

https://i.imgur.com/QKWyRy9.jpg

44. Sixty Forty
John Peel Session 19/08/2003, Compiled on Maida Vale Sessions, 2022.
Audio on YouTube
159 Points, 8 Votes

It hadn't occurred to me that mine ("Inside Out") was the lowest ranking of all the first-place votes lol. But then I look to have voted for almost everything placing after I went to bed (around "O How I Miss You"), so it's hardly a shock.

Sixty Forty is wonderful and my number 2. It took me a while to figure out I rated it so high but there it is.

Shall I do it?

TOO LOW!