Public Service Broadcasting - The Singles (2013)

Public Service Broadcasting are one of my favourite current bands, and I'm hoping that by sharing this collection of their early singles that it will encourage people to investigate them further and try their three superb albums, plus the outstanding 'The War Room' EP, which first introduced them to me. Led by the enigmatically named J. Willgoose Esq., the first incarnation of the the band consisted solely of Willgoose, and following a few gigs around London, he issued the first PSB recordings in 2010 as 'EP One'. Teaming up with Wrigglesworth on drums the band played its first festival in September 2010, and then began work on a second EP 'The War Room'. This used World War II public information films and contemporary documentaries as the basis for five instrumental pieces, which blended together to produce a stunning EP which captivated me on first hearing - so much so that they're one of only five bands that I've seen live in the last decade, and the only one that I've made the effort of meet and greet at my local record store. Since then they've released three albums - 'Inform-Educate-Entertain' in 2013, using more public information films, 'The Race for Space' in 2015, which is built around snippets of dialogue from the US and Russian space expeditions, and 'Every Valley' in 2017, which used documentary dialogue about the decline of the Welsh mining industry. The newest EP 'White Star' includes four pieces about RMS Titanic, and I'm hoping that it's just a taster for a full album. After listening to music for the past 50 years I've discovered that it's very hard to come up with something completely new and original, but Public Service Broadcasting have done it, and done it extremely well. This primer includes the four tracks from the debut EP, a live take of one of the pieces from their first album and a radio edit of another, both sides of the 'ROYGBIV' / 'Lit Up' 7" single, the emotive 'Everest', and their 2013 Record Store Day release 'Elfstedentocht'. If you are getting a bit jaded about the current state of the music industry and want to hear something totally new, then do give PSB a listen and see what can be achieved with a bit of imagination. 

Track listing

01 Introduction (Let Yourself Go)
02 Mixergames
03 New Dimensions In Sound
04 Theme From PSB
05 Signal 30 (Live from KEXP)
06 ROYGBIV (Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet)
07 Lit Up
08 Night Mail (Radio Edit)
09 Everest
10 Elfstedentocht (Parts One & Two) (exclusive mix)