Come On Let's POLL - ILM Artist Poll #114 - BROADCAST (Polling and Lobbying Thread)

there’s also a terrible cover out there by the band tennis

Oh wow. Listening now. Thanks.

I should definitely have considered the possibility of covers after asking "Why does 'Swingin Party' have so many streams?" during The Replacements poll lol.

it’s also the band’s most conventionally pretty song, which goes a long way in some quarters

just remembered this band is pure magic, why the fuck would we poll them, like weighing a ghost

I feel like the point of a poll is secretly only 18.3% about ranking stuff, and some 81.7% about eliciting such declarations of love!

I wasn't sure if I'd find time to participate in the poll, thinking I'd just follow.
I'm so glad I am. I've listened to Maida Vale, and now I'm relistening the albums in order and I'm already so enthusiastic.
ILM polls are like the cherry on top of music enjoyment.

One oddity I tossed some points is the remix of Saint Etienne's Angel. Seemingly stripping the St Et content back to little more than a vocal snippet (?), it ends in up "Accidentals" territory instead: dominated by wonky looped samples from what sound like entirely unrelated sources. Spooky!

"ends up in 'Accidentals' territory" rather. #BrainDamage

Voted!

Really tough getting these songs in order. Best band in the world.

One oddity I tossed some points is the remix of Saint Etienne's Angel

Completely forgot about this! It deserved points yes. This was on Casino Classics (Oct 96) so pre-dates the release of Book Lovers - St Et were extremely early adopters. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that they tried to sign Broadcast to EMIDisc? Thank fuck they did not succeed.

Best band in the world

This is definitely the case.

Princes Hill Secondary College Vocal Group wants to remind you to put the, um, bangin' Witch Cults opener, The Be Colony, on your ballot.

Still the best version of Lights Out IMO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDc-k9kIRRg

It's meatier than the BBC version innit. One thing I like about this song (though it's possibly most pronounced in the familiar studio version) is how the bass and the buzzy synth line accentuate the end of each bar, almost like they're being switched off altogether. Or like they're employing a tape loop again even though that's presumably not what they're doing this time. At least until later on, lol.

Also "I want to watch the carpark empty" is heavy, man.

Which Microtronics are people thinking of voting for? I may put a few in, Microtronics 05 for example.

I think I had all of 03-07 and a couple more from the second half on my shortlist. But ended up whittling that down to just 04 in the end. Clearly ballots should have had 50 slots. :(

*scans list for something that hasn't been mentioned yet*

Distant Call!!! Perhaps Echo's Answer's somewhat unheralded cousin, what with the icy mood and relative lack of a beat. All about the little details: bass as punctuation; the minutiae of the distortion on the synths; "I am not made of clay"; extended woozy coda. You know it makes sense.

Fun fact: exactly one track has appeared on all ballots so far and... well, it's an a good one. (Mine is one of those ballots, so of course I approve.) But I would never have guessed this track at the outset.

No, wait, there are two in that category! I wouldn't have guessed the second one either!

A few extraordinary remixes/strays of note:

Projects, "Accidents Will Happen (Broadcast Remix)"
Gonjasufi, "The Caliph's Tea Party (Broadcast & The Focus Group DedNd Remix)"
The Sea and Cake, "Interiors (Broadcast Remix)"

People have already been talking about this, but Broadcast's live performances were awe-inspiring. The 2000 Black Session and especially the 2001 All Tomorrow's Parties performances were great, the latter especially, for example expanding the little Bonus Beat outro of "Where Youth and Laughter Go" into a monster jam.

And the two Australian shows from 2010, Melbourne and Meredith, are particularly mind-blowing. They have longer and more direct versions of Witch Cults-era songs; "A Séancing Song" turns from a bit of a trifle into something much more intense. The Melbourne show opens with an eerie 13-minute loopfest (called "Winter Sun Wavelengths" on the version I have) and both shows have the massive so called "Dulcimer Jam" — extraordinary — and "Eyes Open." And Keenan's voice has this particular next-level unearthliness, that's not reducible to the fact that these were her last shows.

I was at the Sydney show on that last tour and it was amazing. It was the only time I got to see them. Trish had the most joyous stage presence.

Winter Sun Wavelengths was their live (semi-?) improv soundtrack to a beautiful Julian House film, like the cumulative opening titles to every uncanny UKTV children’s serial 1965-1979.

https://vimeo.com/15796306?embedded=true&source=video_title&owner=1002094

I didn't know about that Julian House movie/soundtrack. It's a wild way to start a show. The version from Melbourne adds more vocals, feels like its spinning out of control.

I saw them in San Francisco in '09, and remember there being a lot of long, spooky, abrasive psych, like they were developing slow motion into some 1960s version of Coil, it was wild.

This is a pretty good document of Winter Sun Wavelengths

https://vimeo.com/11641209

Not long after Trish died, James was talking about finishing a final Broadcast album which I presume would have featured some of those last songs like "dulcimer jam" and "eyes open" - what a holy grail release that would be.

The version of You and Me in Time at the end of the Melbourne show is breathtaking

Cargill suggested that we demanded *some* sort of encore even they weren't set up for anything. It was rather moving to hear that he/they apparently found that final headline show particularly memorable. All the more so given Melbourne audiences have a reputation for crossed-arms and scowling lol.

So cool to see them play Winter Sun. And yes maybe someday for those songs... I imagine it must be totally overwhelming for him to deal with that material.

I still haven't seen a single mention of Beberian Sound studio - like me, do people tend to discount it as a release? I think a few of the demos James may have considered for finishing are there, I certainly hear Trish.

I like it! Though, as with so many OST LPs, a succession of variations on a limited number of themes can be, er, challenging as one continuous program. They worked rather well in when I was shuffling that playlist up the top of the thread, for instance.

Funnily enough, The Equestrian Vortex mock title sequence was going to be the next thing I posted when the thread went quiet again. I gave it plenty of points.

I may be something of an outlier though!? My ballot is probably 30+% instrumental and I'd *always* liked them best when they were drawing heavily from euro soundtrack/production music less explicitly.

I listened to Focus Group and Berberian back to back today and actually prefer Berberian.

I actually found the DVD in an op shop the other week and bought it, but haven't yet watched it. Apologies for misspelling Berberian.

swooning to the Maida Vale version of "City in Progress"

* schedules a charity store tour of Tasmania *

Apologies for my endless typos in this thread btw. I mean, I have neurological problems, but even *I'm* puzzled by the constant misplacement and omission of words here. Yet another reason to be grateful that CaAL is onboard for the rollout for this one. :)

Agree they were great live - I saw them sometime round the turn of the century in Oxford at The Cape of Good Hope (called The Point, I think, back then) - I just remember a tremendous drive and force that I hadn't got from the records.

But I cannot find any evidence that this gig took place anywhere on the internet, which surprises, disappoints and slightly disturbs me.

Still around 9-ish days till the deadline. More than enough time to contemplate a ballot even if you only noticed this thread this instant. Probably!

Here's a Berberian Sound Studio studio track I remember people occasionally citing as a standalone highlight: Teresa, Lark of Ascension. I assume that's Keenan there channeling her inner Edda Dell'Orso.

woof maybe this is it? They are bloody difficult to search for.
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/broadcast/1997/oxford-brookes-university-oxford-england-33ca44a5.html

^ 3/6 being ditties most of us wouldn't hear till 2.5 years into the future. Wow.

I dutifully bought We Are Reasonable People the following year principally for "Hammer Without A Master." I suspect I would have been hugely annoyed that that was 'only' a brooding amelodic instrumental if I hadn't been so hopelessly ignorant of the other wares they'd been merrily showing off live lol. (Actually, I probably *was* somewhat annoyed that it was a brooding amelodic instrumental, but I was young and stupid then and it's on my ballot for this exercise!)

I saw them at Leeds Cockpit in Dec 2003 (again, very hard to now locate details of this online) and it concluded with Hammer Without a Master, with Trish harmonising over the extended outro as it deconstructed around her until she was acapella for the last couple of minutes and it was enormous and extraordinary.

: )

they did it at bowlie too iirc, 1999. i have(had) a minidisc somewhere.

Mattkkk, I don't think it was Brookes, and it was earlier than 2003 - I suspect it's either a missing date on this tour, which seems like it may have gaps:
https://www.setlist.fm/setlists/broadcast-63d6f2eb.html?page=24
Or there's a stray gig at the Charlotte in Leicester in 2001 that might be an ATP warm-up but seems a bit odd sitting on its own:
https://www.setlist.fm/setlists/broadcast-63d6f2eb.html?page=22

I suppose it could have been the charlotte gig - it's my hometown and I might just be blurring small venues in my head. But I don't think so - there are missing gigs for other bands (eg Trail of Dead) at the same venue, around the same time.

I really thought the internet was at a point where there'd be a comprehensive gig history for any band with a decent number of fans.

I've definitely posted too much on this thread but I feel I should squeeze in some praise for Extended Play, the first one. I may have voted for every track. "Papercuts" probably needs little promotion and I feel like I've already typed "Where Youth & Laughter Go" a squillion times, but there's also the two wholly instrumental tracks. They're both pretty spiffy and perhaps their most conspicuously Italianate tracks pre-Berberian!?

Dave's Dream
Belly Dance

Cool that one can find praise from their peers re pretty much every long-player, in Quietus Baker's Dozen features. eg.

- https://thequietus.com/articles/19111-jenny-hval-favourite-albums-interview?page=7
- https://thequietus.com/articles/15422-peter-strickland-favourite-albums?page=4
- https://thequietus.com/articles/22429-jane-weaver-interview-favourite-albums?page=7
- https://thequietus.com/articles/19004-bradford-cox-deerhunter-atlas-sound-favourite-albums?page=6
- https://thequietus.com/articles/29784-valentina-magaletti-interview-favourite-music-2?page=5
- https://thequietus.com/articles/16971-anthroprophh-paul-allen-favourite-albums-interview?page=10

Rose Elinor Dougall called them her favourite band (just ahead of Stereolab) in the same feature. It makes sense her and Gwenno are huge fans. You can hear the influence all over their excellent solo albums.

https://thequietus.com/articles/21894-rose-dougall-interview-favourite-albums?page=3

^ Noice.

Amusing that despite them coming up over and over, every LP, one of their writers recently seemed to feel that Nite Jewel needed to defend such a outlandish choice.

What brought you to Broadcast? I’ve previously joked that they’re kind of like a bargain basement English Stereolab, but maybe I’m ungenerous…

(Also: 'English'? Because Stereolab are 'French'?)

woof - was definitely the point (small often overpacked room above the old ‘the pub oxford’ on the roundabout at end of cowley road). Early 2000 as you say - my first year in university and not long after royal trux and shortly before clinic played there in shows for which there also strangely appear to be absolutely no record of on the internet. the noise made by people had just come out - so march / april / may perhaps.

Pretty sure wisdom of harry (pete astor) and king of woolworths (now recording as advisory circle on ghost box) supported.

Sonically and visually still one of the most amazing sets I’ve ever seen - felt like a glimpse into what i’d imagined being at velvet underground / the factory must have been like.

Can’t find any definitive proof of it either, but hope my faltering memory for detail helps/reassures you a bit

Thank you! Yes - I remember the lights/visuals and likewise got that Factory feeling. And that timing, supporting NMBP, is where my memory was placing it.