IT’S all systems go at Public Service Broadcasting HQ when we Zoom-in to speak with the London-based, archival material obsessed electro-indie outfit the week before the launch of their fifth studio album.
A record inspired by the aviation record-breaking life and final doomed round-the-world flight attempt of early 20th century flying legend Amelia Earhart, The Last Flight is the quartet’s first project for their new home with So Recordings - and label boss Adam Greenup is already on record as saying he wants the J Willgoose Esq-led group to build upon over a decade of critical acclaim by finally scoring a Number One album.
Sadly, while the ever-faithful Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) fanbase has been eagerly pre-ordering the new album, released today in the wake of buzz-generating singles The Fun of It (featuring Andreya Casablancas), The South Atlantic (featuring Kate Stables of This Is The Kit), Electra and the just-released Towards The Dawn, sadly, a certain mainstream musical behemoth is also gearing up to drop its latest chart-crushing magnum opus.
We played it live for the first time ever on last night's @BBC6Music session for Steve Lamacq, and today we've released it into the wild - here's Towards the Dawn: https://t.co/edVhet0yo8 pic.twitter.com/JDc0SaQOa8
— Public Service Broadcasting (@PSB_HQ) October 1, 2024
“I think Adam was hoping for a Number One, until he saw Coldplay were releasing the same week,” explains Willgoose, ruefully, with reference to Chris Martin and co’s Moon Music, which is probably already at Number One as you’re reading this.
“I think we’ve all put that to one side now.”
Wherever The Last Flight finally touches down in the charts, it’s refreshing to hear a label boss stating such bold ambition for an a wilfully leftfield act like PSB, who specialise in hugely atmospheric and musically eclectic concept albums inspired by subjects as varied as space travel - 2015′s The Race for Space - the decline of the British coal industry - 2017′s Every Valley - and the history of the BBC - 2022′s live album This New Noise.
“You want a bit of ambition, definitely,” agrees Willgoose, who started the band as a solo project in 2010, “so long as it’s the right kind of ambition.
“Adam is a very enthusiastic and imaginative character, but I think if it was somebody coming from a very different point of view, like, ’we want a Number One, so go and re-write this record’ or something, I’d really be like ‘oh no’.
“But thankfully Adam is happy to work with what we give him.”
To be fair, The Last Flight features some of the band’s poppiest work to date, including the aforementioned singles, half of which prominently feature easy-on-the-ear guest vocals alongside the usual spoken word dialogue snippets which have long been a PSB sonic trademark.
This vocal trend began on the group’s last album, Bright Magic - a love letter to Berlin’s impact on modern music - which also featured singing from Berlin-based artists Andreya Casablancas and EERA.
Both have returned for The Last Flight, the latter singing [all in English, this time] on the wonderfully woozy and romantic indie-rock ballad A Different Kind of Love.
“With Andreya and EERA, because we’d worked quite closely before, I knew what their strengths were,” explains Willgoose of how the collaboration with each singer on the record worked.
“I knew with a good deal of confidence what they would bring to each song, and I think they both did a great job. With Kate from This is The Kit, that was me playing a demo to JF Abraham [PSB multi-instrumentalist] and him saying ‘you should get This is The Kit for that’.
“Kate was amazing to work with, just really straightforward. I think she enjoyed the process - and with The South Atlantic [which also features pedal steel from My Morning Jacket man Carl Broemel] it’s almost all her own lyrics.
“I think I suggested changing the tense of one word or something.”
As for how this artistic choice in the studio has a knock-on effect in concert, EERA will be on-hand each night to handle all the vocals on the upcoming tour to celebrate the album’s release - including a trio of Irish dates in Dublin (November 2), Belfast (November 3) and Cork (November 4).
We're very happy about this! A handful of tickets left for Cork, not many more for Dublin, Belfast starting to gather pace... Don't hang about https://t.co/rj8uEm008E https://t.co/eRl7OvdcXQ
— Public Service Broadcasting (@PSB_HQ) September 2, 2024
“It’s nice to have live vocals on stage, it definitely adds something else,” says Willgoose.
“I mean, I can carry a tune, but not to the level where people are going to want to come to a show to hear my voice.”
In a major break from PSB tradition, the spoken word parts throughout The Last Flight were performed by actors rather than sourced from the archives of the British Film Institute and similar organisations, as the available period audio interviews with Amelia Earhart were deemed too stiff and formal to effectively convey her unique boldness of spirit.
Of course, using actors means casting them and providing a script, two brand new challenges for Willgoose during the creation of his band’s fifth studio album.
“It was really different, a really intimidating prospect,” admits the PSB leader.
“To be honest, it was quite terrifying. That was the thing that kept me awake about this album more than anything: how do we find actors? I’ve got no clue. Can we afford it? I’ve got no clue. Can we get good ones? Can I direct them? Can I write a script - where’s that coming from?
“Originally, I was like ‘I’ll just write the little bits I need for the songs’, but that really led to me deconstructing the whole way that I work when it comes to samples.
“I realised it wasn’t useful trying to snip out one line - I needed to get the actors to record a chunk of text, and then I would kind of treat that as if I’d discovered a sample that needed snipping, editing and moving around.
“So I ended up getting people to read news reports and bits of Amelia’s writing and bits of press conferences and treating that as the ‘found’ material.
“That’s where the true, sort of ‘authorial hand’ reveals itself, I think, with our stuff - it’s that editing process.”
Impressively, the actor cast as Amelia, Kate Graham, sounds utterly convincing as the Kansas-born aviation pioneer - despite being from somewhere much closer to the band’s London base.
“Kate is from Hartleypool,” laughs Willgoose, who says he was thrilled by her voice performances throughout The Last Flight.
“Everyone [actor] who worked on it was really strong, but she had the most to get her teeth into - and she rose to the challenge magnificently.”
