20 Years of Broadcast’s Tender Buttons
Since the untimely passing of the group’s lead vocalist, Trish Keenan (Patricia Anne Keenan), in 2011, the Birmingham, England-based indie electronic group Broadcast has garnered a cult following as their lyrical legacy continues to coexist in the unparalleled universe where their sonic spirit continues on this epic journey through the eager ears of an entirely new generation of listeners and fundamental fans alike. Since forming in 1995, the band has released several studio albums, most recently the remainder of the group’s atmospheric archival material, “Spell Blanket (Collected Demos 2006-2009”, which comprises songs and sketches drawn from Trish's incredible collection of 4-track tapes and MiniDiscs, and “Distant Call (Collected Demos 2000-2006)”, a collection of early demos that eventually became the contents on “Haha Sound,” “Tender Buttons,” and “The Future Crayon”) in 2024. Where we’re going with this is directly in front of the line of time, where the 20th anniversary of perhaps the group’s most celebrated body of works, 2005’s “Tender Buttons.” Representing the band’s third studio album, the material came from the artistic aftershock of several members departing before its cultural conception, leaving the duo of Trish Keenan and James Cargill to step up to the poetic plate with their revolutionary rawness and the stripped-back nature of their more experimental, improvised identity they shared in the early days.
Combining the never-ending nature of reality with the realms of romanticism, the album’s overall chemistry, when mixed with the dingy DNA of the human experience, reveals this tonal text that only the band could literally broadcast. A spellbinding effort that connects listeners with the raging rhythms and samples from obscure kids’ TV from the 1970s, boot fair synths, and baby boomer pop, “Tender Buttons” effortlessly echoes into the void from the material world like a beacon of hope carrying a melodic message for all to hear. Every track was creatively conceived, written, recorded, and mixed in Birmingham, England, with both musicians acting as sole producers throughout the entire process, bringing this masterpiece to the sonic surface. Across the album’s fourteen tracks, the duo intimately ignite this intense inferno of electronic ecosystems from within their already decade-long chemistry. While capturing the multi-layered poetic pileups and the contextual circuits found within the melodic marrow of tracks like “Arc of a Journey,” “America’s Boy,” the only single from the album, “You and Me in Time,” and “I Found the End”, the band truly tapped into their esoteric energy, and have since become tonal titans of their generation.
