Music: Public Service Broadcasting
Formed only six years ago, mssrs J Willgoose Esq and Wrigglesworth have just released their second album, The Race For Space, the follow up to their brilliant debut Inform-Educate-Entertain.
While their debut album artfully juxtaposed British and American propaganda and public safety film and audio of the 30s-70s, The Race For Space employs a mix of the propagandist and ‘live’ audio captured in the control room of Houston, as it attempts to trace this historic ‘race’, conducted at the height of the Cold War, between the arch enemies of the USA and USSR. PSB have once again achieved what they explicitly implied via the title of their first album; to inform, to educate, and to entertain. And with the pleasant rock, pop, ambient and electronic beats, PSB are first and foremost about entertaining, as their live shows testify, gigs that have that crucial extra ingredient of being visual.
“When we put the live show together we wanted to make it as live as possible, so even though there are only two of us, I play guitar and banjo, there’s keyboard work and sample triggering, and there’s behind the scenes looping. Then the drums, which is always good to watch, and his electronic triggers to loop stuff with, as well as two other musicians on stage” says J Willgoose. “We operate on the principle that it could go quite badly wrong! Behind us we have the footage that we’ve edited to fit the music, and we’ve also got some old TV clips. In a way the footage becomes the frontman and we play the music around it.”
Beginning with rallying words of President Kennedy from a speech in 1962, The Race For Space covers the period between 1957 and 1972, book-ended by the launch of the first space satellite (Sputnik 1) and the last moon mission (Apollo 17), largely, but not exclusively, in strict chronological order. It is built with many samples taken from the British Film Institute, NASA Audio Collection and the Apollo Flight Journals, many not previously available to the public.
“One thing that has become clear after starting this is how lucky we are able to operate now. It wouldn’t have been possible even just ten years ago.”
Corn Exchange, Brighton Dome, Wed 22 April, 7pm,
SOLD OUT
