Public Service Broadcasting recorded in the shadow of legends David Bowie, Iggy Pop, U2 and Depeche Mode in Berlin.
Ahead of their headline show in Aberdeen, front-man John Willgoose Esq revealed new album Bright Magic was forged at the legendary Hansa Tonstudio in the German capital.
Having initially written the album tracks in Berlin the recording was delayed by eight months as John was stranded in London, separated from his equipment during the coronavirus lockdown.
He had returned to London with his wife in January 2020 to be close to family for the birth of their first child – then the coronavirus pandemic hit soon after.
John admits to fears the album would never be completed.
Eventually, he was able to return to Berlin to resume and complete the band’s magnum opus at the studio where Bowie recorded his seminal Low and Heroes albums in 1977.
Other artists to have recorded at the former concert hall in the Kreuzberg area of Berlin, just 150 metres from the former Berlin Wall, include U2, Iggy Pop, Depeche Mode, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, REM, Pixies and Pet Shop Boys.
Aberdeen fans will hear the results of working in the Hansa when Public Service Broadcasting headline the Music Hall on Saturday November 6.
John said: “I landed really lucky and was able to rent a room at the Hansa complex so I wrote the album there.
“I was working there every day with all these echoes of genre-defining musicians like Bowie, Depeche Mode.
“Every day I was walking in their shadows.
“The whole shape and structure of the record is very much in debt to Low.
“Initially I felt overawed, overwhelmed and intimidated by it but I then got on with it on a day-to-day basis.
“There is something special about the big hall at Hansa and it feels like a religious experience to me.
“As soon as you step in there you can feel it – there is something in the air, a magical experience.”
An impressionistic portrait of Berlin
Bright Magic is an impressionistic portrait of Berlin and differs from previous Public Service Broadcast albums in that samples and the English language are used sparingly.
The initial spark of inspiration came in November 2018 when John heard Walter Ruttmann’s radical Berlin tape-artwork Wochenende (Weekend) which was recorded in 1928 and includes speech, field recordings and music in a sound collage.
John said: “I had written the record in Berlin and came home to have my wife and I’s first child in London to be around family for all of that.
“We intended to go back out to Berlin as all my equipment was out there and we were renting a studio and a flat.
“Then everything shut down and we couldn’t even get into the country so it was pretty stressful.
“I was starting to wonder if the record would ever get finished and if we would ever be able to get back into Germany.
“I didn’t know what to do so the equipment sat there untouched for eight months which was quite heartbreaking really.
“As it was for so many people it was a time of uncertainty.
“We managed to get it done in September last year and get all the gear back to London.
“To come out the other side of that with the record doing as well as it did and to be now touring that – we feel very fortunate.”
Recording the sounds of Berlin
John moved to Berlin in April 2019 and walked the streets of the city armed with a wide-band electromagnetic receiver from Moscow’s Soma Laboratories to record electrical currents and interference.
Bright Magic, the band’s fourth album, was preceded by two singles.
Blue Heaven is an anthem to self-determination inspired by Marlene Dietrich featuring vocals from Andreya Casablanca of Berlin’s Gurr whilst People, Let’s Dance features vocals from the Berlin-based musician EERA.
John said: “I have been fascinated by Berlin for as long as I can remember and part of the process in writing the album was trying to unravel why is that?
“Why Berlin in particular? What is it about the city and its history that drew me there?
“The record ended up being a bit of an answer to that.
“It is in the music of Bowie, Depeche Mode, U2 with Achtung Baby, Einstürzende Neubauten, Nick Cave and Tangerine Dream. All those musical influences coupled with the uniquely interesting place it has occupied in history.
“People have gone there to reinvent themselves and write their own myths and we thought that looks like fun, maybe we can have a go at that.”
The influence of Einstürzende Neubauten
Public Service Broadcasting’s most ambitious recording to date Bright Magic also includes guest vocals from Einstürzende Neubauten’s Blixa Bargeld on Der Rhythmus der Maschinen.
Einstürzende Neubauten are the logical progression from Faust and the influential industrial post-rock band are renowned for their experimentation. Their sonic maelstrom often uses made instruments forged from scrap metal.
He said: “For this record I was listening to a lot of Einstürzende Neubauten especially for the track Blixa (Bargeld) ended up being on.
“I hadn’t intended to approach Blixa initially as I was just too terrified!
“I had been listening to Einstürzende Neubauten’s Halber Mensch album in particular.
“We tried to take a leaf out of their book in the studio and we did smash things up for the first time – very politely, just to ease some of those techniques of more chaos and accidental inspiration.
“Another big part of the record is (Brian) Eno and his oblique strategies and trying to do things differently.
“That type of thinking is enmeshed in Berlin and once you get there it encourages you to explore these new ways of doing things.
“It was another reason for mostly leaving the spoken word samples behind and using different samples, working mostly in another language as well.
“We were taking our own leap of reinvention.”
A welcome return to the Granite City
Prior to the ongoing tour to promote Bright Magic, Public Service Broadcasting had not played live for more than two years.
John is relishing a return to Aberdeen.
He said: “We were in Aberdeen as part of a festival (True North) and before that had three Lemon Tree shows.
“We haven’t been in Aberdeen for a while so we are really looking forward to coming back.”