Description
Released as a tour only CD 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.
