Broadcast - 'Tender Buttons' (Warp) Released 19/09/05

The new improved Broadcast are slimmed down to two members. It’s been two years since their last release and funnily enough, track two might be the best song on this sublime work - if you ignore track eight ‘Michael’ - which you can’t, but the competition is very close.

Trish Keenan and James Cargill are the duo that’s been left behind to represent Warp with this new minimilist, almost totally electric, combined with cool as cats Keenan, album. The experimental mix of pop and electronic psychedelia with an avalanche of sublimely deadpan (my feet are dancing too much, but my tongue’s taking it easy) vocals from Keenan. Unlike a usual day at the races, inspirational titles do not lead to disappointment after the start. 'Tender Buttons' sounds as smooth as a diary made into music could. Be prepared to travel through time in layers of stuttering synth, warped Aphex twin like twists on the high pitch war against everything static: ‘Corporeal', mixed with folk pop trends treading round the neat beat of electric drums.

Throughout, Keenan sings like a spoken voice. She knows over singing parallels over acting, nobody’s impressed but the mother who’s just an inch away from slitting her wrists with a broken Liza Minnelli record. Besides, she probably can’t do it like a musically shopped idol, and thank God. You will agree with her choice of cold cut vocals, her Mazzy Star and Nico (of The Underground) style; the rough and smooth sound of scratching silk. Not unlike Ladytron, this non-emotional tone that’s shed from lips, force the words themselves to be attended to, and in that way the story itself is freed to wander our ears and minds!

‘America's Boy’ glows with political luster while ‘Tears In The Typing Pool' is a melancholic delight to swim in. A small organ and slow strung guitar will put you on a pew in mourning for me and you. You can almost feel the stroking of the spire in the echo, as if sung in a church on a hazy Sunday morning. From busting into someone in the middle of ‘Arc Of A Journey' computer game, to burgling their subconscious sorrow in the form of a ‘Black Cat', this collection is best consumed with a wet martini on a dry darkening day.