Unedited Broadcast

What follows is an excerpt from the combined in-person/email interview between Joseph Stannard and Broadcast which resulted in issue #308's cover feature.

The Wire: Can you take me through each of the six song-based tracks on Witch Cults Of The Radio Age, one by one?

Trish Keenan: “I'd like people to enjoy the album as a Hammer horror dream collage where Broadcast play the role of the guest band at the mansion drug party by night, and a science worshipping Eloi possessed by 3/4 rhythms by day, all headed by the Focus Group leader who lays down sonic laws that break through the corrective systems of timing and keys.”

“The Be Colony”

“Written from the perspective of a mythological harmony group. I like the idea of conjuring up a weird cult of science worship, a kind of modern day Eloi who believe in a united being, the unity of all things. The kind of early philosophy I imagine ancient men and women were in touch with, that innate loop of thinking that regarded the world not as something we are in, but as a place that is present within us. The fuzz guitar makes me think of that C.A. Quintet cave setting and the 3/4 dark and obsessive waltz is kind of a world turning, dawn of a new era feel.”

“I See So I See So”

“I wrote this after a trip to the British Museum. I meant it as a kind of ritual song, how I thought a song for January would go. I wrote an introduction to it in the style of Mort Garson's Zodiac - Cosmic Sounds: "A call to January. Melt in the rise of the inner solar. You are of the world, return to yourself. A new beginning is a light within."

“Libra, The Mirror's Minor Self”

“I wrote this over an instrumental written by James. A misty loop with rummaging sounds that reminded me of the theme to [the 1969 TV adaptation of Alan Garner's children's novel] The Owl Service. I liked the idea of a disembodied voice that floats across a piece of music without feeling attached to any pulse. The words were a cut up of my horoscope. I quite like the caring tone of horoscopes and found shuffling the words around a bit added up to something quite gentle and cryptic. To me it's how a seance mirror would speak, luring you to its reflection by a kindly tone but when you look in for an answer, you're totally confused by what you see. I was actually frightened by the way The Focus Group laid heavy bass fragments and electronics over the top of the song, and as I saw it, at a crucial point in the first resolution of the vocal line. It's like authorial sound enters to say 'No! That's not how it's going to be' and suddenly the vocal disappears and you're left out on your own not knowing who you are. I was really keen to not be me on these recordings. I was happy to be somehow erased from the context of the recording. The identity of my voice corrupted and disguised by tape slowing and reversal.”

“A Seancing Song”

“I guess the first question I asked myself before writing this was, what does a medium's song go like? I knew the hypnosis of a 3/4 rhythm could work and a loose improvised feel of someone channelling unexpected visitors. I began by looping some autoharp and throwing prepared words into vocal melodies. I captured the recording on a dictaphone. the idea of setting up a 'pro' recording channel seemed to go against the basic idea of automatic channelling... and I like the way tape is it's own magnetic entity. To me it sounds like an Edith Sitwell character in a curtain-drawn parlour trying to contact lost songs, and suddenly being overrun by them, the overlaid foley gives the impression of them trying to get in through the doors and trying to desperately contact her by telephone, it was a very visual outcome, I thought. Actually, I think the song is a subconscious reaction to the fact that I haven't put any songs out into the world for a long time.”