Public Service Broadcasting - Bright Magic [2CD / LP] (LP Box Set)

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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 'Haupstadt' of the Federal Republic of Germany - Berlin.

"Doing this felt inevitable, somehow," muses J.Willgoose, Esq. "In my head, it was whirring and pulsing away for a long time, even before Every Valley - this fascinating, contrary, seductive place. I knew the album was going to be about the city, and its history and myths, and I was going to move there. So it's quite a personal story. It's become an album about moving to Berlin to write an album about people who move to Berlin to write an album..."

Though PSB's use of electronics and surging guitar rock remain familiar, Bright Magic uses samples, and the English language, sparingly. It differs from their previous albums in other ways: less linear and narrative, instead it's an impressionistic portrait of a city from the ground up. A Eureka moment of sorts came in November 2018 when Willgoose heard Walter Ruttman's radical Berlin tape-artwork Wochenende (or Weekend), which is sampled on three of Bright Magic's tracks. Created in 1928, the piece collaged speech, field recordings and music into a sonic evocation of the city. Resolving to integrate these long-gone fragments with new manipulated sound sources, he set about making his own Wochenende, a narrative drama for the ears which decodes and realises the dreams of Berlin he'd constructed in his mind.

J.Willgoose, Esq. said "I started to get a feeling for where the title of Bright Magic wanted to take me, towards ideas of illumination and inspiration, electricity and flashes of light and colour and sound (all the tracks would eventually be colour coded). I sent it to the rest of the band, and said, I know it's going to change, but we'll see how the city itself colours that."

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.

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- 2CD / LP
- WHITE VINYL

INCLUDES:

- 12" x 12" 20-PAGE PHOTO BOOK
- ADDITIONAL BOOK