Bright Magic

Product Information

a b "Certified Awards Search" (To access, enter the keywords "Public Service Broadcasting"). British Phonographic Industry . Retrieved 22 October 2021. Public Service Broadcasting will release their fourth album, Bright Magic, on 24th September 2021 via Play It Again Sam. An album in three parts (Building A City / Building A Myth / Bright Magic), it is their most ambitious undertaking yet, bringing you to Europe’s heart and de facto capital, the cultural and political metropolis that is the ‘Hauptstadt’ of the Federal Republic of Germany – Berlin.

As well as EERA, the album’s other guest voices include Blixa Bargeld, veteran of The Bad Seeds and Einstürzende Neubauten, and Andreya Casablanca of Berlin garageistes Gurr. A very pro-European record, Bright Magic is ultimately not just about one city, but all centres of human interaction and community which allow the free exchange and cross-pollination of ideas. Sheffield, Hazel (6 February 2014). "Public Service Broadcasting keep calm and carry on". The Guardian. Naturally, given the city’s unrivalled electronic heritage, Wilgoose had to find fresh ways to utilise his primary instrument. On first listen, Bright Magic may appear to be a smorgasboard of entirely electronic instruments, but peer deeper into these densely latticed songs and you’ll find a wealth of textural guitar washes, loops and pitch-shifted phrases, the product of a pedalboard brimming with boutique options. The longest shadow of all however is perhaps inevitably cast by David Bowie, particularly the era from which sprung the incontestable genius of Heroes and Low. Here, the Warszawa-evoking The Visitor pays tribute, ruminating on his other worldly gift for helping society to assimilate concepts once seen by many as uncomfortably alien. Public Service Broadcasting have been “teaching the lessons of the past through the music of the future” for more than a decade now. 2013’s debut album Inform - Educate - Entertain used archival samples from the British Film Institute as audio-portals to the Battle Of Britain, the summit of Everest and beyond. Two years later, The Race For Space used similar methods to laud the superpowers’ rivalry and heroism in orbit and on the Moon. In 2017, joined by voices including Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield, Every Valley was a moving exploration of community and memory via the rise and fall of the British coal industry. Pointedly topical in its analyses, it reached number four on the UK charts.

Public Service Broadcasting release their fourth album, Bright Magic, via Play It Again Sam. An album in three parts ( Building A City / Building A Myth / Bright Magic), it is their most ambitious undertaking yet, bringing you to Europe’s heart and de facto capital, the cultural and political metropolis that is the ‘Haupstadt’ of the Federal Republic of Germany – Berlin. As well as EERA, the album’s other guest voices include Blixa Bargeld, veteran of The Bad Seeds and Einstürzende Neubauten, who becomes the voice of Berlin’s industry on the robo-teknik “Der Rhythmus der Maschinen”. Andreya Casablanca of Berlin garageistes Gurr stands in for Marlene Dietrich in “ My Blue Heaven”, an anthem of proud self-determination. Every Valley from 2017 was another poignant album recalling the reverence steeped upon the coal mining industry through the 1970s followed by the ruthless shafting it took during Thatcher’s 1980s. The band played Progress and People Will Always Need Coal to reminisce the former period and All Out to recall the latter. All Out has become something of a powerful staple in any PSB performance. Focusing on the policing of the year-long miners’ strike in 1984, it’s about as loud and aggressive as the band get. Willgoose crashed guitar chords off the walls while 30-foot-high pitched battles between miners and police played out behind him. It’s an extremely angry piece of music reflecting an extremely angry time. Public Service Broadcasting win Rebel Playlist at 6 followed by an addition to the main daytime playlist!". Popular News. Archived from the original on 2 June 2012 . Retrieved 20 May 2012. Public Service Broadcasting have been “ teaching the lessons of the past through the music of the future” for more than a decade now. 2013’s debut album Inform – Educate – Entertain used archival samples from the British Film Institute as audio-portals to the Battle Of Britain, the summit of Everest and beyond. Two years later, The Race For Space used similar methods to laud the superpowers’ rivalry and heroism in orbit and on the Moon. In 2017, joined by voices including Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield, Every Valley was a moving exploration of community and memory via the rise and fall of the British coal industry. Pointedly topical in its analyses, it reached number four on the UK charts.

Through subsequent albums, the band have explored the cold war US/Soviet quest for dominance aloft in The Race For Space and the rise and fall of the Welsh coal mining industry in Every Valley. With each iteration, the music has evolved: choirs, strings and horns abound and the reliance on archive audio samples has reduced. 2017’s Every Valley had vocals contributed by Manic Street Preacher’s James Dean Bradfield, Welsh language singer Lisa Jên Brown and Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell. There’s lots of other boffinery in the notes as well, but essentially this is PSB shorn of some of their niggly contrivances. Opener Der Sumpf (Sinfonie der Großstadt) is a brief, Moog heavy taste of what follows, an expansive sounding ambience which is also filtered variously across the Lichtspiel triptych – Opus, Schwarz Weiss Grau and Symphonie Diagonale in case you were wondering. Der Sumpf (Sinfonie Der Großstadt)", "Im Licht", and "Lichtspiel I: Opus" contain samples from Wochenende (1930) by Walter Ruttmann.More anthemic still is the Marlene Dietrich-inspired Blue Heaven, a chugging bassline, motorik beat and rousing flourishes from Wilgoose’s guitar fusing together as Andreya Casablanca sings “I am all my own invention, I’m in my blue heaven”. It’s one of those huge, universal Public Service Broadcasting productions expertly honed to roll out across massed festival crowds next summer.