The city of Berlin is the inspiration for Public Service Broadcasting’s fourth album, Bright Magic, which celebrates the art, industry and myths of Europe’s cultural hub. However, in order to fully immerse himself, frontman and founder member J Willgoose Esq had to move there – and before Brexit potentially shut the gates. Prog caught up with him to find out more.

Words: Jo Kendall

Bright sparks: Public Service Broadcasting.

Images: Alex Lake

If there ’s one city in Europe where art, industry and society feel most progressive and free, it’s Berlin A creative crucible through the 19th, 20th – and, so far, 21st – century, its allure has drawn musicians of a more left-of-field and experimental mindset from across the world for the last 50-plus years. Among the latest has been London’s Public Service Broadcasting, or more specifically, frontman and founder J Willgoose Esq, when he relocated there to put together their latest album, Bright Magic.

For Willgoose, the idea of Berlin as a “seductive and enticing place to go” was already in his mind’s eye before PSB first played there in 2013, when touring debut album Inform-Educate- Entertain. “It sounded so cool,” he tells Prog on the phone from his London home, “Everything from the history of it, to the counterculture that swelled up in the 90s. After we’d played there once, we kept going back, and its appeal grew stronger.”

So much so that, when considering what to do for PSB’s fourth album, Willgoose realised that he and his wife “wanted an adventure” – so they decided to move there for short period of time, and see what came out of it.