Description:	CD on Warp
	Format:	CD
	Genre(s):	Experimental Pop
	Label:	Warp
	Price:	£8.19
	Availability:	Dispatched within 2-5 days (on average).

5
...according to our Brett on 22 October 2009.

For the last couple of days I've had the phrase 'all circles vanish' reverberating around my mind and it's all the fault of Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, in which our titular heroes form like Voltron to produce a postmodern take on classically British psychedelic sounds, from Wicker Man-esque acid folk to the Radiophonic Workshop to those childhood television programs that whisked your imagination away on all kinds of flights of fancy just before teatime. As with Broadcast in general as well as all the Ghost Box crew this is incredibly visual stuff and there's always that constant push and pull between innocence and experience, with naive sounds masking what might appear, in a slightly different light, to be some kind of sinister danger a little bit beyond your understanding. The neat trick of this collaboration is that the bands sound so completely intertwined, at times there's a little more Broadcast (with a handful of tracks you could call actual songs) and at times a little more Focus Group (with the editing and sonic wizardry of the quickfire incidental pieces) but neither ever comes close to completely overshadowing the other and it's a quite fantastic sound that they've conjured together.. So full of mystery and memories. Extra details wise, you've got gorgeous artwork from Julian House and a running time of just under fifty minutes, which is a fair bit more than we were expecting since it was billed as a mini LP kind of affair. If you've not heard either of these bands before and you're feeling a little adventurous you could do much worse than starting here, if you like one of them you're likely to be delighted and if you like both I probably had you at "Hello".

Love this record? Hate it? Tell us.

Sound clips for Broadcast & The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age by Broadcast & The Focus Group: on CD at Norman Records UK. CD, Warp, WARPCD189, £8.19.

What their label says...

Broadcast (Trish Keenan and James Cargill) have collaborated with
renowned designer Julian House (aka The Focus Group) to create a
unique mini-album pulling in both collaborators’ unique sense of melody and
love of library music and film scores. After a long hiatus, it can be said with
confidence that Broadcast’s return is greeted with much anticipation.
• From their beginnings in Birmingham in 1995, Broadcast’s aesthetic has
remained a combination of their love for film, library music and electronics
with psych-pop colour – a style which has gained them an enthusiastic
fanbase including musicians such as Flying Lotus, Tim Gane from
Stereolab, Grizzly Bear, Atlas Sound and DangerMouse (who used a
Broadcast sample taken from ‘Poem Of Dead Song’ on the DM & Gemini
album ‘Ghetto Pop Life’). Their music is also a popular choice for film and
TV, featuring on the soundtracks of ‘Ma Femme est une Actrice’, ‘21’ and
‘Morvern Callar’, as well as TV shows such as ‘The L-Word’, ‘Skins’ and
‘CSI’.
• Long time friend of the band and renowned artwork designer Julian House
(aka The Focus Group) is co-founder of the Ghost Box label, which in the
last few years has birthed a cult of its own with releases reflecting its
creators’ obsessions with library music, English folklore and the eerie feel of
vintage programmes for schools and colleges. His music as The Focus Group
offers some of the most enchanting distillations of all the above, instantly
complementing Broadcast’s own long-standing aesthetic. As well as being a
long-term visual collaborator with the band, House has provided visuals and
artwork for Stereolab amongst many others.
• The album’s release will be teased with a number of assets including
specially commissioned video pieces, additional audio segments
and samplers and a full service to media. In addition the band are
embarking on a month-long US tour in October, co-headlining with Atlas
Sound.

Intro / Magnetic Tales * The Be Colony * How Do You Get Along Sir? * Will
You Read Me * Reception / Group Therapy * A Quiet Moment * I See, So I
See So * You Must Wake * One Million Years Ago * A Seancing Song * Oh
You Chatterbox * Drug Party * Libra, The Mirror's Minor Self * Love's Long
Listen-In * We Are After All Here * A Medium's High * Ritual / Looking In *
Make My Sleep His Song * Royal Chant * What I Saw * Let It Begin / Oh
Joy * Round And Round And Round * The Be Colony / Dashing Home /
What On Earth Took You?