I am not too sure about this.
Broadcast finished with the sad death of Trish Keenan back in 2011 and you would probably imagine that was the end of the story; but since then, it would appear that remaining member James Cargill has been working his way through the various four-track and minidisc demos that Trish left behind.
His intention has been to compile a selection of songs that give an indication to the flavour of the album that would have succeeded 2009’s Mother Is The Milky Way‘. At over an hour long but squeezing in thirty-six tracks, it is very much the musical equivalent of a fistful of snapshots, some coming in at thirty seconds and feels a little like surreptitiously leafing through an artist’s sketchbook.
Spell Blanket‘s opener “The Song Before The Song Comes Out” literally sounds like thirty seconds of Trish singing a melody into a dictaphone whilst walking along the street and there is a lot of this: “I Blink You Blink” is a brief vocal test, “My Body” is a spoken word litany and “Dream Power” is just a series of swooshing loops. All snippets and all clearly preparatory ideas, but do we need to hear them? It is a little like watching the magician from behind, uncovering the secrets. That isn’t to say there aren’t some lovely tracks here, a few of which were heading in a ghostly alt-folk direction; the distant double-tracked vocals on “Roses Red” had me thinking of a trip to Summerisle, while the gentle sun-dappled motifs of “Puzzle” warm the heart.Vocally, some of it reminded a little of calmer Miranda Sex Garden moments and Trish clearly worked hard on the vocal harmonies, some of which are upfront, others tucked in the back behind swathes of reverb. In other places, brief acoustic guitar finger-picking hints at new avenues, while the foreboding rumbling of “Running Back To Me” dips into the shadows.
It must have been an overwhelming task for James to make sense of all this and the recordings veer about quality-wise, some muffled and full of tape hiss and others far clearer. In some cases, there are almost fully worked-up tracks; the pastoral dream of “Mother Plays Games” is a guitar and flute flutter, while “Follow The Light” really does shine with its subliminal synth rhythm. I guess Spell Blanket isn’t pretending to be anything it isn’t. It isn’t a missing Broadcast album and as such doesn’t hang together in that way, so probably won’t attract new listeners; but Broadcast fans will love to hear this collection. There are moments of pure melancholy and when on “I Am The Bridge”, Trish sings “I am the bridge between the living / Through my eyes and through my giving”, you can’t help but be retrospectively moved by the sentiments even now.As an epitaph to a much-loved and much-missed talent, this is not quite the last word on the band; that will come later this year with the Distant Call collection. Just don’t approach Spell Blanket expecting cohesion and clarity. It feels like a ghost transmission and I guess that is what it is.
-Mr Olivetti-
