Le Poisson Rouge
Words by Cameron Cook
Photos by Diana Wong

Hm, CMJ. Due to a nasty bout of the H1N1 (believe the hype, it totally sucks) and a slight disinterest in this year’s line-up, I ended up only really seeing one band during the 2009 music marathon: British cult electronic kooks Broadcast. The last time I truly got down with Broadcast was back in 2005 when they released Tender Buttons, a phenomenal record that includes their scene-crossing mini-pop masterpiece, “Michael A Grammar“. October of this year saw Broadcast release Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age (a collaborative mini-LP with Julian House, a.k.a. The Focus Group and founder of the Ghost Box label), and as soon as I realized they were performing at NYC’s semi-intimate Le Poisson Rouge club, I knew I would have to experience their beautiful distortions of modern pop music in person. I believe the last time they played New York, they stopped by Irving Plaza on the Tender Buttons tour, and while the show was duly magnificent, the thought of experiencing them in a place like LPR sent the experimental-electro fanboy in me into hyperdrive.

Inspiring a sense of equal parts concern and confusion, Broadcast began their show with essentially white noise sparsely freckled with digital drums and frontwoman Trish Keenan’s echoey harmonization. For 15 minutes. In the dark. Just as even the most beloved Broadcast fan began to scratch their heads, the band launched into “Black Cat“, the lead single from Tender Buttons; and as their psychedelically geometrical projections flickered on stage, Broadcast proceeded to give the audience exactly what they came for (even in spite of unfortunate technical difficulties that plagued pretty much the entire set, seemingly emanating from Trish’s, um, modular-vocal-box-channel-thingy). In all, the show left me excited for a proper Broadcast tour in support of their upcoming 2010 full-length, which I’m sure will make their already enjoyable CMJ set pale in comparison.