Part of Warp's 2022 campaign of making
Broadcast's hard-to-find music more widely available,
BBC Maida Vale Sessions offers a primer of the band's early work performed live. Compared to the reissues of
Mother Is the Milky Way and Microtronics, Vols. 1-2, this collection of three Peel Sessions and one Evening Session from the mid-'90s to the early 2000s is more grounded in traditional songwriting and full-band performances. As expected of the BBC, the sound quality is impeccable, and the energy of
Broadcast's performances reveals different aspects to these songs than the crafted perfection of their studio recordings. The slinky rhythm of "Untitled" (which became The Noise Made by People's "City in Progress") comes to the fore on this 1996 performance, highlighting the jazz influence on their early work and how the elegance they shared with
Stereolab and
Portishead was becoming distinctly their own. Later, they let the acid rock trapped within Haha Sound's "Pendulum" run wild with heavy drums and hallucinatory guitars and synths.
BBC Maida Vale Sessions also provides plenty of reminders that
Broadcast were just as good at writing memorable, affecting songs as they were at pushing the sonic envelope. There's a note-perfect version of "The Book Lovers," "Colour Me In" remains one of their finest nursery rhymes for grown-ups, and if the 1997 performance of "Come On Let's Go" lacks some of the gravity-defying drama of its final form, it shows
Broadcast already had the song's broad strokes well in place. Indeed, half of
BBC Maida Vale Sessions was recorded before the release of The Noise Made by People, and this focus on
Broadcast's early years emphasizes how brilliant they were from the beginning. The intimate version of "Lights Out" makes the most of its drifting thoughts and sonics, while the band open up "Echo's Answer," expanding its mother-of-pearl radiance in a way that arguably surpasses the studio version. The collection's slightly more hidden treasures include a searching cover of
Nico's "Sixty Forty" and "Forget Every Time," a song the group never recorded in the studio. Its optimistic lyrics, ominous sound, and theremin-like squeals are both familiar and surprising -- much like the rest of
BBC Maida Vale Sessions. ~ Heather Phares