Mar 3: Bright Magic and Berlin

This Public Service Broadcasting album Bright Magic is their 'Berlin' album.

Via Loudersound.

It's their most ambitious undertaking yet and even includes vocals from Einstürzende Neubauten leader Blixa Bargeld. It brings the listener to Europe’s heart and de facto capital, the cultural and political metropolis that is the ‘Hauptstadt’ of the Federal Republic of Germany – Berlin.

Walter Ruttmann’s radical Berlin tape-artwork Wochenende (or Weekend), which is sampled on three of Bright Magic’s tracks provides a key aural resource. Created in 1928, the piece collaged speech, field recordings and music into a sonic evocation of the city.

I've always been excited by the work of the band's multi-instrumentalist songwriter J Willgoose Esq. and there is a good geographical connection once again in this album (as there was with 'Everest' and the coal-mining theme of 'Every Valley'.

Combining sound archaeology and the flâneuring of the psychogeographer, one street-level pursuit of the city’s energy involved Willgoose walking the Leipzigerstrasse, site of the city’s first electric streetlight, using a wide-band electromagnetic receiver from Moscow’s Soma Laboratories. “I walked up and down recording electrical currents and interference,” he laughs. “You can hear a few of these little frequency buzzes, clicks and impulses in Im Licht (a song inspired in part by pioneering lightbulb manufacturers AEG and Siemens). It’s what I was trying to do in the wider sense, I suppose – to capture those tiny little pulses you pick up while walking through a city.”

Credit: Loudersound

 

Bright Magic is the latest album from the band Public Service Broadcasting. It is influenced by the city of Berlin, and influenced by 'Metropolis', Kraftwerk, Vangelis, Marlene Dietrich, Weimar era Germany and the history of the city. I was due to visit in 2020 for an ERASMUS trip, but the pandemic ended those plans.

I have blogged about this band and their music many times before. This is another triumph after 'Every Valley' and 'The Race for Space'. The final track embraces the quotidian... with a rendition of a poem by Kit Tucholsky called 'Eyes in the Big City' with vocals by Nina Hoss. 

Check out the album on your favourite streaming service...