Good stuff, and a definite kick on. Still; I do wonder what the Orb or The Barmy Army would have done with this material.
Good stuff, and a definite kick on. Still; I do wonder what the Orb or The Barmy Army would have done with this material.
(Test Card Recordings) http://www.konkurrent.nl
An interesting LP, and a definite step on from their previous releases (all that Hotspur stuff about blitzes and Spitfires). This correspondent is glad that’s happened as PSB could be onto a good thing. And those early PSB tracks didn’t half come across as some BBC2 history programme, with everyman presenters telling us about sacrifice and so on. Maybe that’s PSB’s job, to sneak up on ironic twentysomething and educate them like Auntie used to. But if it was a razor sharp parody about people in the national media going on and on about (bloody) Spitfires I do felt it misfired [sic!]. Frankly, something didn’t feel quite right about listening to PSB, it was all a bit too cosy.
Anyway, out with the old and all that: this LP is about the space race. A subject that should give plenty of scope for some whacked out sonic investigation, you’d think. As I’ve hinted at it certainly doesn’t feel as cramped or as coy as their other work. And when the LP does warm to the task it sets itself, it is great; Sputnik is a marvellously cerebral track, referencing the chord change from New Order’s Elegia to great effect. The slap-tastic Gargarin is enjoyably camp too; getting increasingly like a track from Stars on 45. And that is no bad thing. E.V.A. is also a cracker; a groovy, ever-so-slightly-naff studio funk track that floats off from its moorings now and again; gently borne aloft by soft synths and sotto keys. The Other Side has enough misty-eyed sentiment about it to ensure that the track has more than the some of its parts.
Good stuff, and a definite kick on. Still; I do wonder what the Orb or The Barmy Army would have done with this material.