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

has anyone seen the film itself? looks pretty good, not sure where I can watch it.

“A Seancing Song” there for my daughter (age 20), she’s Broadcast-aware but not a fan per se, yet somehow this is her favourite.

Would not be at all surprised if there's a great rediscovery of Witch Cults at some point.

Ok, one last one for today.

https://i.imgur.com/HuAoX17.jpg

61. The Aphid Sleeps
From Mother Is The Milky Way, 2009
Audio on Youtube
54 Points, 4 Votes

Tomorrow we'll have numbers 60-41, including some better known tracks, and two number ones.

I like Witch Cults and Mother is the Milky Way, but as works of sound collage I found it hard initially to zero in on "songs." It helped thinking through the lens of the things from those records they performed live as songs, i.e. Royal Chant, In Here the World Begins, Be Colony/Dashing Home/What on Earth, What I Saw

Also interesting were the few pre-Tender Buttons songs they kept around: Valerie, Lunch Hour Pops

Ooo I love "The Aphid Sleeps"! It didn't make my abbreviated 15-song ballot, but it perfectly embodies the tripped-out storybook folk of Mother Is the Milky Way. It sounds like an Incredible String Band song!

Love your work Camaraderie at Arms Length!

I probably voted for half of what placed overnight (GMT+10). Makes for a bitchin' trippy Sp*tify collage, I'm finding, with 5 seconds crossfade, after mostly not listening to Broadcast for a few weeks.

Ah, now it's wisely playing Children of Alice to sustain the mood. I heart you evil algorithm.

Berberian Sound Studio is the only Broadcast release I don't own. Maybe it's time to give it another go.

Here's a rundown of day one.

77. Locusts
76. Chord Simple
75. Microtronics 04
=73. Bit 35
=73. Dead The Long Year
=71. A Quiet Moment
=71. The Be Colony / Dashing Home / What On Earth Took You?
70. I'm Just A Person In This Roomy Verse
69. Let it Begin / Oh Joy
68. What I Saw
67. A Man For Atlantis
66. A Seancing Song
65. The Little Bell
64. Belly Dance
63. The Equestrian Vortex
62. Teresa, Lark of Ascension
61. The Aphid Sleeps

might get going a little earlier today as it's the only day I'm working this week and have to fit in some posting when I can.

has anyone seen the film itself? looks pretty good, not sure where I can watch it.

Yes, it's quite good. I re-watched last night. While Broadcast are playing for a goodly proportion of its duration, I'm not sure everything on the record was used. eg. #62 might have appeared as little fragments, if that. The title sequence linked at #63 is indeed the only title sequence it has, though it purports to the opening of the film within the film, The Equestrian Vortex, which is seemingly the most horrifically violent film ever. (Virtually no other footage of the fictional film is revealed; just the terrifying soundtrack they're piecing together with groovy mid-century equipment.)

Nothing from my ballot placed yesterday but in retrospect I should've voted for Chord Simple as a standalone track, it's really lovely.

I really like Berberian Sound Studio, the whole thing is Broadcast catnip - I'd say they are pretty deep beneath the skin of Peter Strickland (the filmaker) - he's revisiting similar audio fetish territory in his new one, Flux Gourmet. I think he was involved in Ben Wheatley's In the Earth, which explores similar Stone tapes / owl service type Broadcast obsessional themes. His Field in England is also superb. Sorry, I feel like you all know all this....

I don't! Though I have been taking a dive into Broadcast influences/ references as you'll be able to tell from the images so far.

* puts Flux Gourmet and In the Earth on watchlist *

I lost track of Wheatley after 'Field' and only ever saw the one Strickland film, so this is welcome.

Likewise a film-still checklist from CaAL lol

Ace, if you find yourself on a Strickland Jag, Duke of Burgundy (s/t by Cats Eyes) is magnificent and In Fabric (s/t by Tim Gane) is a lot of fun.

Aaah, noted! I guess only got as far as a quick dip into the latter's soundtrack. Thanks.

let's get to it with day 3, shall we?

https://i.imgur.com/z9CPhAd.jpg

60. 'What You Want' aka 'Dulcimer Jam'
From late live performances
Live recording, Melbourne HiFi Bar, 2010
55 Points, 4 Votes

I'm now dreading to see my first vote appear even though I only voted for 30.
I wanted to say that although I have no idea what motivated each pairing, I find many of those images positively hilarious, especially all the ones that look like 70s Czech cinema.

There is a story behind the pictures which I won't reveal yet, but think it safe to say "Czech cinema" is very much barking up the correct tree.

Yay for #60! This appears to be my 8th selection, now that I actually look at the list.

That recording at Youtube inevitably leads, at some point, to me thinking "if she hadn't circumnavigated the whole planet to play for us she'd probably be alive today." : (

What You Want AKA Dulcimer Jam is intriguing, wish I'd voted for it, it sounds like a load of different things (Tender Buttons / Krautrock / VU & Nico) but also like nothing else somehow, such a shame we never got that 4th LP.

https://i.imgur.com/A1Xstfz.jpg

59. Elegant Elephant
From Mother Is The Milky Way, 2009
Audio on YouTube
60 Points, 5 Votes

I swapped this out quite late, for some reason.

I do like that there is a bit of support for quite a few Mother tracks. I wonder whether we would have seen fewer a year ago.

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

58. Small Song IV
From Pendulum EP, 2003. Compiled on The Future Crayon, 2006.
Audio on YouTube
61 Points, 4 Votes

'Small Song IV' off the Pendulum EP is perhaps the most 'Summery' thing they've done.  - Sociah T Azzahole (blueski) - Aug 1, 2005

Summery? Interesting.

I gave some points to this one. It's not wholly unlike "Distant Call", come to think of it. With slightly more crustier, dysfunctional electronics, typical for the HHS era. I seem to be attracted to this general bed of electronics + conversational (? lol) bass template.

https://i.imgur.com/7HsMY2P.jpg

57. Mother’s Milk Means Music (At Home in the Universe)
From Mother Is The Milky Way, 2009
Audio on YouTube
63 Points, 4 Votes

xp yes, doesn't sound particularly summery to me either.

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. :)

"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!