Mike has recently discovered the joys of Public Service Broadcasting, and so has put together an overview of their work, from their first EP right through to their most recent release. So over to Mike....
Iʼm back and this time with an unusual album that I wish existed by a group called Public Service Broadcasting. It turns out pj loves them, and even did an old post on them here, but they are a relatively new find to me! pj did a great write up on them in the link above… but here is my brief skinny on them: Public Service Broadcasting are a London based musical group originally consisting of: J. Willgoose, Esq. on guitar, banjo, other stringed instruments and samplings; and Mr. Wrigglesworth, who played drums, piano, and other various electronic musical Instruments. In recent years, the group has added to that core and now also includes J. F. Abraham on Flugelhorn, bass guitar, Vibraslap and drums and their newest member, the mysteriously named Mr. B. They are famous for sampling old public information films, archive material, and British public-service films from roughly the 1940's through the 1960's, and setting them to music. Their songs tackle topics as broad as the space race, the sinking of The Titanic, and World War II, and as small and personal as the plight of coal miners, the mail train, driver safety, and your television set. When they play live they never speak or sing a word, but each song sends a clear message, and as they play they project carefully crafted films from those public-service messages that sync to the music, liberally using footage and voices from the past as a way of looking at the present, but teaching lessons of the past through the music of the future. Itʼs entertainment as education for the head and feet alike and Public Service Broadcasting puts it all together in powerful ways.
For this collection, I took another deep dive on the internet, and at first I envisioned it as a sampler full of their remixes, but found that they had released a whole bunch of those already…so I decided to go on a different approach and present a really cool selection of alternate versions of songs from their first EP (EP ONE), produced in 2010, all the way up to their newest album 'Bright Magic', which they released last year in 2021. Along the way I was able to find live versions of almost all their singles plus a few wonderful deep cuts which Iʼm presenting to you in chronological order based on their release dates (but not by the date they were recorded in concert). Iʼve remixed every single song, as the thing I love most about the band is their amazing use of audio clips mixed in with their incredible music, but in a live setting these 'vocals' ae smetimes not as loud as on their albums, so I've taken the liberty to use the app X-Minus Pro to separate the 'vocals' from the music and then bump them back up in the mix to make them much clearer and easier to understand. All in all, awesome stuff that Iʼm sure youʼll enjoy.
Track listing, with venue source and topics covered (where applicable):
01 New Dimension in Sound (Live Sheffield Doc Fest 6-15-13) Stereo Sound Recordings
02 London Can Take It (Live on KEXP 2-23-14) WWII
03 Spitfire (Live on KEXP 2-23-14) WWII
04 Waltz For George (Museums At Night @ RAF Museum 5-14) WWII
05 Theme From PSB (D R U G S Remix 8-11 13)
06 ROYGBIV (Live on 2 Meter Sessions 4-22-14)
07 Everest (Live on KEXP 2-23-14) Mt. Everest Climbing Expeditions
08 Race for Space (Moon Landing 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 7-19 The Proms)
President Kennedyʼs 1962 Speech
09 The Other Side (British Underground Sessions 2015) The First Flight Behind The Moon
10 Go! (British Underground Sessions 2015) The First Lunar Landing
11 Progress (Live at WFUV 9-13-17) Coal Mining In Wales
12 The Pit (Live on Soundcheck 4-10-15) Coal Mining In Wales
13 People Will Always Need Coal (6 Music Live Room 2018) Coal Mining In Wales
14 White Star Liner Suite (Titanic Slipways - Belfast May 2018) RMS Titanic
15 People, Let's Dance (Audioglider Remix, Bright Magic 2021)*
*For their latest project, 2021ʼs 'Bright Magic', they seem to have put away the idea of using vintage public service films as the basis for their songs. I dig it…thatʼs why I included one song from it here… but letʼs hope this is a temporary fling with another style instead of a complete change of direction!
PS I chose the name for this album as a play on words: View From Above is an “Overview”, which is what this project is… and the pic was taken of J. Wilgoose floating weightless “above us” in space. Well… I get out kick out of the wordplay
Mike and I had a slight disagreement about whether to leave in audience noise in the live 'White Star Liner Suite', as he though it was interesting to hear that the band do sometimes speak, and I preferred just the music, so as it's his post, his mix is included in the main album, but I've included my mix as a bonus so that you can decide for yourselves which you prefer. pj
