There are artists who are singularly irreplaceable, and we will never experience anything like them again during our time here orbiting around the sun. Trish Keenan was one of those creative supernovas. Alongside James Cargill, the English duo Broadcast were their own supernatural sound traversing an eerie yet comforting cosmic plane of psychedelic and synth pop with beguiling, timeline-warping mastery, until Keenan’s death following a bout of pneumonia would pause that story in 2011.Through the release of critical listening live sessions and reissues of tour-exclusive albums (another lost relic from better times…,) Broadcast have been able to extend Keenan’s memory. Now, 13 years following her passing, we reach the final fragments left behind of her brilliance with Spell Blanket – Collected Demos 2006 – 2009, a collection of music that was to become the fifth Broadcast album.

Cargill has spent the better part of the past decade culling together these songs recorded onto four-track tapes and voice memos on MiniDiscs in the years since the band’s last proper studio album, 2005’s Tender Buttons. There’s no concrete linearity across the hour-long arrangement of 36 demo songs, yet it’s a fascinating glimpse behind Keenan’s creative psyche while also making the audience wonder and pore into detail of what would have become of them, as they lay bareboned, some more fleshed than others. Distortion-drenched echoes from beyond (“March of the Fleas”,) sun-faded freak-folk and gothic retro-pop (“Roses Red”, “Colour In the Numbers”,) minimalistic synthetic transmissions (“Follow the Light”,) and chiming, kaleidoscopic instrumentals (“Luminous Image”) astral project Keenan back to us.

As has always been at the core of Broadcast, these songs even in their rawest form give of themselves unto the universe sonic matter with the ability to transcend logic and all senses. The listen leaves behind a legacy of that unparalleled mystery. The wonder lives on, and for that, we can only be grateful to have spent a little more of our time on this Earth experiencing Keenan’s gift.

Highlights: “Roses Red”, “Follow the Light”, “The Games You Play”

Broadcast’s Spell Blanket – Collected Demoes 2006 – 2009 is available now on Warp Records.

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