If anything, Berberian Sound Studio is best experienced as a single unit all the way through, letting Broadcast’s uneasy, uncanny wash over your consciousness. So even if it’s difficult for any album packing in 39 tracks into 39 minutes to come off as entirely cohesive, Cargill does a yeoman’s effort of pulling together what are essentially snippets and creating something with an all-encompassing sense of atmosphere and flow. Cobbled together by Broadcast partner James Cargill from work he and Keenan did for Berberian Sound Studio, music that was meant to feel eerie and uncanny to begin with is all the more haunting due to the unfortunate circumstances that befell Keenan. Yet what makes Broadcast’s first - and only - foray into soundtracking something that bears even more interest is that it showcases some of the last recordings by band co-founder Trish Keenan, who passed away at 42 in January 2011. That what ultimately ended up as the soundtrack for the art-house thriller Berberian Sound Studio was initially envisioned for a film-within-a-film is all the more appropriate, considering that few acts around use sound to create an alternate reality in such vivid and visceral ways as Broadcast. Theirs was music that could be appreciated on multiple tracks at once, either as fully immersive background music that seeped into your unconscious mind or as meticulously crafted mini-symphonies that demanded active listening and careful attention.
Known and admired for its very own brand of retro futurism, Broadcast was always about setting a mood and conjuring up déjà-vu-ish memories of things yet to come.
If ever there were a band meant to do soundtrack work, it would be Broadcast.