Mother Is the Milky Way by Broadcast

Released as a tour only CD limited to 750 copies supporting their collaborative album with the Focus Group in 2009, Mother Is The Milky Way takes on a retrospective weight as Broadcast’s true final release before Trish Keenan’s passing in 2011. The release contains some of Broadcast’s warmest, most personal recordings as a group. Trish Keenan was known for her dreamily distant delivery on Broadcast’s records, but before connecting with James Cargill, Keenan was a part of another duo in Birmingham: the more folk-leaning Hayward Winters. While virtually nothing from that project made it onto the internet aside from a few mentions in interviews, it provides some explanation for how naturally Broadcast slipped into sample-heavy psych folk for Mother. The EP properly opens on ‘In Here The World Begins’, unfurling woozily but proving to be the closest Keenan and Cargill come to a standard issue Broadcast song here. Highlight ‘Elegant Elephant’ is more telling of the project’s aim, crafting a pastoral folk song in what sounds like the belly of a beast, soothed only by the reverberations of Keenan’s voice inside. Sketches of songs quickly give way to tripped out field recordings, woodwind interludes, and excited chatter underpinning Keenan’s singing, giving Mother a certain wide-eyed, psychedelic Alice in Wonderland-esque whimsy. Considering Keenan was a known lover of the children’s book, it’s hard not see Mother as a bittersweet, unintentional tribute to Keenan’s life, but far more enjoyable to just enjoy the ride down one last rabbit hole from Broadcast. 2022 reissue remastered from the original tapes at Calyx in Berlin ℗ 2022 Warp Records