Broadcast - 'Ha Ha Sound' (Warp)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Quite what the game-plan was at the beginning of putting together this record is unclear, but if it was to make a twisted pop soundtrack to 'Alice in Wonderland', then some well-earned pats on the back are in order for Broadcast.
The Birmingham quintet have returned with the long-awaited follow up to 2000's debut LP 'The Noise Made By People', and with them, they've brought along a delightfully bewildering album.
Songs here are like vibrant collages, made with a cut and paste experimentation mind-set so prominent that you can almost smell the glue. Opener 'Colour Me In' could be the theme to a children's TV programme if its musical backdrop wasn't so uneasily bizarre, vocal sparks of sunshine interrupted by mechanical noise and electronic twists to the tale. Broadcast must give thanks every day for their singer Trish Keenan, whose gorgeously sweet singing, laid over music that shimmers and playfully dances around in the distance, give the record its single hold on normality. Her dulcet tones are the only trick Broadcast have to steer some otherwise peculiar musical canvases (reminiscent in places of the likes of a more edgy Air, My Bloody Valentine or Stereolab) towards straight-up, if futuristic, pop music.
Tracks with an overbearing feeling of 'nice' about them (and trust us, there are a few) are occasionally split up with a few minutes of unsystematic noises (the curious 'Black Umbrellas', for example) - a strange tactic you may think, but one rather effective at adding some surprises to break up a record that may otherwise come across as slightly sickly. It's not the only way they add variety. Where all songs contain uniquely dreamlike qualities, there are some that are dreams you'd be shaking from when you woke up - moments of comforting warmth, juxtaposed with shrieks of unrecognisable sound. It partly makes up for one of its only possible criticisms, the lack of will to alter the slow pace of things at any point, countered with such courage and success in wanting to be quite so musically diverse out of the ordinary.
Standout track 'Ominous Cloud' sums up the record agreeably, all light-hearted on first glance but with something sinister lurking just beneath the surface. You wait for it to jump up and bite you for quite a while, and then 'Distortion' comes in for the attack. You escape with a few cuts and bruises, but never fear, as the rest of 'Ha Ha Sound' more than adequately nurses you back to full, smiling health.
All efforts herein bearing a quality of loveable, childlike innocence, the whole record stays entirely friendly, even when it's trying to do things you'll find completely unfamiliar. In places, 'Ha Ha Sound' can indeed be shocking, but not in the sense that it's constantly bombarding you with bolts from the blue. Instead, Broadcast prefer to let things unfold organically, revealing their stories in a slow moving haze. It's like very few things you've ever heard - and all the better for it.
Artists in this article: Broadcast
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