BROADCAST - Future Crayon Review

If last year’s Tender Buttons — essentially a stripped-back breakup album — was effectively for devotees only, then this excellent compilation of B-sides, EP tracks and one-offs is a much easier way to pick Broadcast’s lock....full text Birmingham, 1995. Drum and bass (then called jungle) rules pirate airwaves. From somewhere within the concrete mesh of the UK’s second city comes something that’s every bit as progressive as the breaks, yet also soothingly familiar. It’s as if aliens have been studying ‘60s chamber music and attempted to recreate the haunting melodies using their own bizarre instruments, channelling the sounds back to us via the static interference on our TVs. The boffins at electronica imprint Warp are intrigued. It’s the future and it’s the past – we call it Broadcast....full text Sometimes the test of how great a band is can be boiled down to their b-sides. Take the Pixies, The Smiths or New Order—each band had their fair share of album castoffs that became classics among fans, and for good reason. Imagine a discography without "Manta Ray," "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" or "Procession"; seems incomplete, doesn't it?...full text