HA HA Broadcast

The death of Trish Keenan reminded me how great this album is.  I heard this album just before I finished my last year at college.  I liked it and how it sounded so different then any music that was out at the time.  I read a interview with Trish in Wire and she knew what she had with this band.  She also  knew what the music they were making was more then just music that was going to be forgotten in the future. Finishing this post realized the genius of this great band.  Trish died in 2011 and there will be a hole the music she created.  

Broadcast's commitment to crafting meticulously, ethereally beautiful atmospheres gave their music a detached quality that made them somewhat difficult to embrace fully. This isn't the case on Haha Sound, the band's second album. While their music still sounds like it could've been crafted by ghosts in the machine, no Broadcast give it flesh and blood through more warmth and texture.(AM)

With that being said, we lost a true original on January 14th of this year in the singer of Broadcast Trish Keenan. It was a shock to me that she did pass away. She had a really great gift of singing and I felt like being in a different state every time I heard her. Her music to me was addicting. Her voice brought shivers to me and really made me take stock of what female vocals were all about. Sure, I loved the Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell, Beth Gibbons and others of the world, but something about Trish was different. When I was back at college I picked up a Wire Magazine that had a feature on her and her band Broadcast. It was very good interview and it discussed all these wonderful influences that I would never have thought of. I went to the radio station where I did DJ'ing and picked up the CD The Noise Made By People. I gave it a good listen. It made quite an impression.

The music was not Portishead style or that kind of music. The music here was quite unique. It was a great to hear something fresh. In my last semester at school we got a copy of the album I am featuring here. Haha Sound was something that really blew me out of the water. Not only did this album really make an impression it also did not leave my CD player or my radio shows most of that semester that I was at school. That year for the college paper I mentioned how this album can send those shivers down my spine. It takes a lot of great sounds to make an impression on me. I might be quick or slow to pick up on it, but this one really struck a chord that no other artist had.

Broadcast mixes many genres and with that they do and they do it comfortably and create some great stuff. The songs that I love are "Colour Me In" and "Pendulum." 'Colour Me In" was even covered just as lush and beautiful by Of Montreal. They turned that electronic mix and sound into a sonic acoustic short landscape. It's what Broadcast does well is the fact they can really make a huge impression on me. The music of Broadcast fits well with me because of the music they search for as inspiration. This same music is the music I really love to explore, listen and really go giddy over.

I do suggest you try this, because Broadcast is a lost band. It's a band that surfaced with music geeks like myself and really caught the fire of all of us realizing there really is new and fresh music to be found. I really think you should start here and you might understand what I like about this music too. Try it and like it and I am sure you can thank me later. The snippet from Pitchfork below really helps describe what I am tell you about. Trish will be missed and I am sure no one will ever be like her. I really wished I saw them live back at the height of 2000 and really soaked it in better. Enjoy and if Trish you are reading this; Thanks! Enjoy!!

Broadcast take the infectious tick of pop and add it to the head-music tock of often non-pop genres (European art house soundtracks, exotica, incidental music, Ohm-style electronic pioneers). The result is an enveloping, mysterious record that marries the idealism of "the future of tomorrow today" to the stark reality of the post-millennial present and finds beauty and fascination in the tussle between melody and rhythm.(pitchfork)