Public Service Broadcasting
The Race for Space (Test Card Recordings)
Reviewed by Greg Beets, Fri., March 20, 2015
Public Service Broadcasting
The Race for Space (Test Card Recordings)No wonder Public Service Broadcasting finds favor with the NPR set. News geeks who play along with the Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! podcast are duty-bound to be intrigued by a London duo that reappropriates actualities from the British Film Institute archive for musical ends. More Paul Hardcastle than Negativland, PSB doesn't subvert text as much as build an alternative paradigm for engaging with the historical record. The U.S./Soviet space race provides fertile ground for this endeavor on their second album. We begin with JFK's "We choose to go to the moon" speech. Originally delivered in Houston in 1962, PSB imbues the slain president's words with religiosity through strategic choral stingers. "Gagarin" gets downright funky with Seventies cop show horn charts, while "Go!" recasts the Apollo 11 moon landing as a montage scored by Tangerine Dream. One can easily imagine these instrumentals finding a happy home at the National Air & Space Museum. (Thu., 1am, Latitude 30)
