Customer Reviews

Broadcast & The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First I would say this album is not to be listened to in pieces, or by favorite track. It's almost a modern rebirth of concept full albums as we're starting to see everywhere, even with the Flaming Lips newest release "Embryonic." This Broadcast collaboration is a selection of sounds and voice to fit a time when your willing to completely shut up and experience.

The shift between tracks that contain a memorable melody, beat and tracks that are an imagination of ambience plays almost as a reflection of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band at times and definetely has futuristic interpretations of a beatelesque sound, especially in "The Be Colony."

The drums pull from acid jazz, jazz, and hip-hop as is typical in Broadcast releases, giving it that trip-hop feel at times, but just when you think they've played what will be a looped clip for the next four minutes of a song, the sound is forgotten and goes away.
I understand the fear of experiencing this while under the influence of something, but the human element really is there, it isn't machine at all, both in it's continuity and it's refusal to repeat. It's like a completely organic sound expressed through the tissue of what seems as inanimate things. Half of modern music has the ability to produce a bad trip if someone is doing drugs, so that's really not a fair method of review...that being said the sound does get a bit over the top at times. In the psychadelic light of the music, the pull from a general flow to a climax of sound, leaves an incredible amount of suspence, such as in "Ritual / Looking In" which can be uncomfortable at times. The sound of animals also adds a strange factor, and could really trip a tripper out..kind of like a coco rosie's album. This factor though adds to the complete feel this album gives, sometimes you're left flying, drowning, in a forest, in the snow and all in sound.

This review might seem a bit metaphoric in its description but it's rather necessary to get it's undestanding across. The mixing is beautifully done, and sometimes carries with it a bit of poking fun at the elements used in echo and ambience to remind the listener that they are in complete control of their technique.

This album is warm, wise, sarcastic and pretty genius if you understand the genre..capable of surprising even the most avid Broadcast fan.

You know all that wierd, merky music you hear in Europian films, say from 1966, 67: you know what I mean--its music but its not. A bunch of cloudy keyboard scribblings, covert sounds, formelss but highly intreguing little tone bursts? Its there, than its gone? Did you really hear it?

That is what this whole album is. Broadcast takes all those wonderful smeared-fingerpaint sounds that never made the soundtrack and spread them over 45 minutes. There are harpichords, the female singer's voice running through a P.A. system, echhos, and little jump cuts. Sounds float without rhythm, overlapping other sounds.

This is truely one of the creepiest albums I have heard in a long time, and I am saying that as a lifelong collector of "out" music. It is hard to scare a 40-year-old who had Hawkwind albums at age ten, but Witch Cults Of The Radio Age genuinely freaked me. I get that feeling you get when you are a kid, when something scares you, so you keep looking at it

Plain and simple, this may be the closest a sober person will get to an acid trip. The Underground named In the Court of the Crimson King "the acid album of 1970." That was then, this is now. That was their's. this is ours.

There are songs here. Great Ones. If you ever doubt Broadcast's ability as songwriters, go back to The Noise Made by People from 2000.

But that is not what Radio Age is about. It is about those textures and acidy little trips on the back pages of albums and films all over the 60s. Broadcast are so good, they can perfectly bring off what may SEEM formless and have the disciplne to make it work over an entire album. Everything segues well and works over the long haul here.

Turn off your mind, relax, and BUY THIS CD.

As much as I hate to say it, I've found myself disappointed with this ep despite my wishes to like it. From their first singles to now, Broadcast has consistently moved toward this sound, but this record leaves behind anything at all that could be considered winsome or pretty, descriptions that definitely fit their earliest work. It's a full-on barrage of psychedelia, in the 'bad trip' sense of the word; I've heard others compare their more recent far with The United States of America/Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies, which makes sense; but here, it's as if Broadcast has discarded all semblence of friendliness, taking the harshest examples of those bands' sound and running them end over end to the very last note. The dissonance and 'treated' quality of the music, the vocals especially, is taken to the breaking point, and sadly, I find it very alienating. On a blog somewhere a fan wrote about seeing them (on their recent tour) and said he was glad he wasn't on any mind-expanding drugs, because the music has become so wholly dissonant and claustrophobic - and I agree; it's like a sound collage for a bad trip. Take the darkest moments of early Pink Floyd and make that your bread and butter, and you'll get the idea. Yes, it's brilliant in its way; and yes, they're excellent at creating that sound and making something unique from the remnants of the darkest of psychedelia. But no, I don't care for it, wishing, really, that they'd hark back to the feel of their earlier work, where, though chill, there was human warmth in the music, musically and lyrically.

Broadcast will go down as one of the great bands of our time. It will happen because they they stood apart, both with their music and, especially now, their career as a band. They semi-consistently released albums, as well as singles, of consistently rich, interesting, intellectual music. They took their time because they didn't know how else to do it. And the time they took is palpable. Broadcast create not just songs but rich worlds to explore. Adventure awaits, "Come On Lets Go."

Regardless of their talent and their music's allure, Broadcast, perhaps unsurprisingly, didn't have a large following at the time they created their music. But this, I think, was cool for the band and the fans. Fans were giddily confounded by their simultaneous love for this band's music and Broadcast's under-the-radar status, especially in America. But the band was always free to take artistic risks that their fans would subsequently lap up because it's great art. And this symbiosis sustained a career.

And then something terrible happened, and they can't make music anymore because of it. Trish Keenan, lead singer, died of unusual complications with pneumonia. So time has stopped for Broadcast.

It has made many people, I'm noticing, return to the band's work. (Just try to find them on vinyl.) From here forward I think more people will slowly listen to Broadcast by recommendations from friends and others. Those who take recommendations will give any of Broadcast's four great albums a listen. And they'll think the music is without doubt worth taking a look at, but they may not fall in love with the material right away. They'll return to the music again perhaps, after another year, and Broadcast may become one of their favorite bands. And this will happen at a slow but heart-warmingly scientific pace for years to come. Broadcast will become legendary.

You eventually realize Broad are one of the most singular and sophisticated bands of this time, musically and lyrically. Songs like "Illumination" and "Subject to the Ladder" are absolutely breathtaking. Broadcast's sonic inventiveness in every song and album provides enough reserve for many great listening experiences. They were such a smart, capable, and inventive group of musicians. It is sad they won't make anything new. And I know those close to Keenan will miss her, and so will fans. But Broadcast will be legendary, I have no doubt.

This is a wild recording. It gets better with every listen. It's kind of a cross between Revolution #9 (like one reviewer mentioned) old sixties films and tv soundtracks, walking through OZ, and Alice In Wonderland. There are some great Broadcast songs sprinkled throughout. It's a trip. A nice, intriguing trip full of surprises. I didn't think it creepy nor a bad trip in any sense of the word. It's Broadcast. They don't make bad albums. They recently toured this and there are some youtube videos of the tour that show off the visuals they used. Broadcast is a really great live act, probably one of the best. See them while you still can.....

"Witch Cults" is definitely NOT your typical Broadcast CD so if you're looking for that kind of thing, be forewarned. This is like Broadcast on acid. Snippets of instrumentals and vocals (usually heavily echoed and otherwise processed) float in and out like the dreamiest soundtrack you could imagine. There are bits of almost-whole melodies but I find the whole CD more satisfying than the (fantastic) parts that comprise it. This does seem like the natural direction toward which Broadcast has been heading and obviously The Focus Group plays a large part in this progression toward an even more spacey, unhinged, powerfully psychedelic musical brew than usual. I would strongly recommend the listener to use headphones or ear buds (as opposed to speakers) to achieve the maximum mind-blowing experience of this sonically dazzling and daringly original piece. This album is one of the closest anyone could come to experiencing a drug high without having to indulge in the real thing. Let your mind go and "Broadcast & The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age" will take you on a unique trip you won't soon forget.

Upon first listen, it seems cacaphonous - scraps of songs mixed together with joyful abandon but with very little for the listener to hang onto. This takes a little deep listening. It took me a good three spins before "Witch Cults" clicked.

I played it quiet. I played it loud. I cleaned the kitchen to it. On that third listen, as track 17 "Ritual/Looking In" cycled and droned into its final shape, I had an epiphany. From that song to the end of the album it was a gorgeous psychedelic quilt of ideas, from minimal funk and break-beat passages to buried animal sounds (warning: your dog will bark at this album) to blurry passages of what sounds almost like the Peanuts' Christmas Album ("Royal Chant"). It's magic. And yes, it's the kind of magic that makes reindeer fly - psychedelic magic. Primal and messy and hungry, capable of crystalline beauty as much as yawning black mouths of anonymous menace.

Normally, I'm a proponent of linear experience. Listen to albums start to finish, the way the artists intended them. But with "Witch Cults" I suggest doing just what I did: turning it up and playing tracks 17-23. The first half of the album is a lot more chaotic, at least until you get the decoder ring that must be buried in the subsonic frequencies of that final stretch of songs. Snippets of song ideas appear and disappear without anouncement (all 23 tracks run together). Moments of particular beauty or particularly interesting structure emerge once, never to reappear. It's a little crazy, as if deliberately designed to make you feel slightly off-center. I get the feeling Broadcast/Focus Group wrote 50-100 songs and sliced and diced and arranged and warped and distilled them down into 23. At other times, objects of real musical craftsmanship (such as the not quite acapella "Make My Sleep His Song") drift out of all the overlapped waves. I don't think my listening method should be the ONLY way to listen to it, obviously, but it helped me get over the hump with this one... now I listen to it start to finish.

It has been suggested by more than one reviewer that this sort of music could only have been produced under the influence. I, on the other hand, have a hard time believing something that takes me on such an intricate, dense and layered journey could be the random outcomes of mind alteration. To me, this feels like more of a drug-free trip, the kind that just uses the natural chemicals already in your body and engages the primitive part of your brain. Then again, song titles like "Drug Party" suggest I might be wrong. Also, I don't think it's necessary to heap a lot of fan disappointment on this mini-album -- it's obviously an experimental foray, and if you don't like that kind of stuff it's not going to magically turn into a pop album for you. No need to punish the band for following their muse.

"...Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age" doesn't invite you in with melody, or lull you with conventional beauty. It pushes you. I admit, I like the weird stuff. I think Black Flag's "The Process Of Weeding Out" is much, much more than Greg Ginn guitar wankery. I even kinda like "Lumpy Gravy" and "Metal Machine Music" ...really! I'm not saying this new Broadcast mini-album is as impenetrable or stark as either of those - honestly, the moments where grooves DO lock up or beautiful harmonies DO repeat more than once are fleeting, but quite rewarding, like they mashed all their best ideas of the last four years into this 50-minute recording.

If they're willing to traverse this sort of territory for this mini-album, I'm excited to see these methods applied to less abstract song frameworks. It leaves me very eager for their next proper full-length, due in 2010.

First, I want express how sad I am to find out Trish Keenan has died. There aren't very many women making this kind of music and it really sucks that she's gone. Because most people can't understand psychedelic music, most will never know of this great loss. In my world, this is a more significant death than any of the 27-year-old "rock legends." Unfortunately our society doesn't have the ability to appreciate music that presents a challenge and so only a few cult-followers will keep this music alive for the future generations, who hopefully have more sophisticated mental processes to realize the depth of these albums and hold this band (at least) in the same regard as the 13th Floor Elevators.

In terms of pushing experimental music to the limits while still capturing the beauty of psychedelia, Broadcast is in their own league. Idiots will hear the soft and lovely vocals and immediately classify them as a 60's throw-back, but those who have more experience with strange frequencies and well-layered music should pick up on an advanced sonic sound-scape transcending almost all other psychedelic bands prior...Compare this with anything from the 60s and you find that no band focused more on creating overt psychedelic music. The only band from that era who focused solely on brain-changing, psychedelic music were the 13th Floor Elevators. The Beatles only made a handful of trippy songs. The Doors relied too heavily on dark bluesy sounds and were better suited for whiskey drinking. The Beach Boys dabbled, but while Brian perfected his harmonies they never came close to the level of weirdness of today's drug-inspired bands. The Rolling Stones tried, Jones died, and they never reached their full potential in this genre...they failed. The Velvet Underground made amazing albums, pleasant to listen to while high, but hardly threatening on a psychological level. Most other bands, while admired in their time, sound dated today and cannot induce such heightened states of consciousness as caused by bands who are able to use modern equipment and production techniques.

This album, while being called an e.p. for some reason, is almost 50 minutes long, so it is no different than a full length. If all you have heard from this band is Haha Sound, for example, you might want to be prepared for something much more abstract and much less focused in terms of pop-mentality. They do manage to throw in some pretty melodies, but the focus here is on "witch cults of the radio age." It's a weird album, to say the least. Maybe not something you can listen to in your car and bob along with your head. I won't shy away from the truth concerning this album: this album should be listened to at night, with all the lights off, a dozen candles lit, a bottle of wine, marijuana, mushrooms/l.s.d., under the covers, with the music turned up very loud, enjoying the trip between satanic-cult subliminal messages and the voice of an angel, getting completely lost and ripped from what's "normal." As with previous albums, they use dark and threatening instrumentation and noise contrasted by rapid shifts into innocent-sounding lullabies. This album however is much more jumpy. Just when you think they are going to break into a moment of concise pop the sounds collapse and they change direction, creating a perfect soundtrack to a schizoid-paranoid dream. While some of the effects and methods used might not jump out at you while sober, there appear to be secret occult chants, scary frequencies, hidden messages, and possible brain-washing attempts if you are able to really get inside the sound and dissect it. Almost nothing outside of the "elephant 6 collective" (Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples In Stereo, Circulatory System) offers unashamed, 100% melt-your-brain-psychedelic drug/meditation music. Broadcast, along with a few others, are able to offer this joy.

I listened to this album quite a few times last summer while expanding my consciousness and it brought me great pleasure. This album isn't for beginners. This is for the kind of people who could have hung with people like Timothy Leary and William Burroughs. This is a gift for people who like to push their minds into the higher levels, into a state where the third eye switches to on and all the world becomes a manipulatable illusion. Great fun.

Thanks for the trip Trish. You will always be alive in spirit and in the waves coming from my speakers.

A sound collage along the lines of the Beatles Revolution #9. Only this one is a full length CD (45 minutes or so).
For fans of "that sort of thing."

Broadcast is amazing for drawing out the characteristics of the psychedelic/space rock genre and basically perfecting them. If I were to hand someone a few albums which really exemplified this kind of sound, I would give them this Broadcast album along with United States of America and Joe Meek's "I Hear a New World". If you are seeking pop-quality songs like "Come on let's go," this album may disappoint you.