ONE of the highlights of Broadcast’s website was their occasional ‘radio mixes’ – collections of arcana that Cargill and Keenan had collated throughout the years, pieced together with a fan’s enthusiasm and a keen ear for both fluency and sharp contrast. They posted three mixes in quick succession in the latter half of 2000 – one pulled together by guest Julian House – then one each in 2003 and 2008.
If you’ve ever wanted a crash course in Broadcast’s record collection, each mix offers a fabulous entry point, exploring a particular strain of avant populism that takes in sound poetry, psych, early electronics and much more. In their woozy, sunblind aura, and their enmeshing of multiple, often clashing tonal worlds, they also point towards the aesthetic that Keenan and Cargill embraced on releases like Mother Is The Milky Way and the two volu mes of Mic rotronics.