Sitting down with NPR last week, Broken Records talked about their music (how they’re a rock group and not a folk band), the difference between Glasgow and Edinburgh (one’s a rough old town and the other is all fur coat and nae knickers, as the saying goes), and the cinematic visions that lay behind their debut and sophomore records (Apocalypse Now in the case of Until the Earth Begins To Part). The band also discussed the recent developments that have led to their shrinkage from a 7-piece to a rather less epic 6-piece group (while keeping a clammy grasp on their trademark “anthemic” sound).
TMS faves Broken Records are heading out on tour from tomorrow. Starting off in their home city of Auld Reekie, the group will be venturing into Europe and across the Atlantic. This’ll be their first full tour in North America, although they made an appearance at SXSW last year.
February
1st - Dublin, Crawdaddy
2nd – London, XOYO
3rd – Manchester, The Deaf Institute
4th – Leeds, The Brudenell Social Club
5th – Brighton, Audio
7th – Hamburg, Uebel Gefaehrlich
8th – Berlin, Magnet
9th – Amsterdam, Welkweg
10th – Brussels, Rotunde
12th – Paris, Fleche d’Or
20th – Washington DC, Black Cat Backstage
21st – Philadelphia, North Star Bar
22nd – New York, Mercury Lounge
23rd – Brooklyn, The Rock Shop
24th – Boston, Brighton Music Hall
26th – Chicago, Schubas
27th – Minneapolis, Triple Rock Social Club
March
2nd – Seattle, Tractor Tavern
3rd – Portland, Mississippi Studio
5th – San Francisco, Rickshaw Stop
6th – Los Angeles, Satellite Club
A derelict chapel off the Old Kent Road seems to be an appropriate venue for this sixth 4AD session, featuring perennial TMS favourites Broken Records. As you’d expect, the video, directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, is all moody atmosphere, dark shades picked out with flashes of brightness (including the church’s stained glass windows), and it matches the prevailing tone of the group’s second record. Watch the recording of “You Know You’re Not Dead” below, and find a link to the full session below.
The session is also being offered as a tie in to the 11th January US release of Broken Records’ 2nd LP Let Me Come Home (which has been out here in Europe since, gosh, ages ago. I think it just took that long for the ship to sail across the Atlantic).
These are in no particular order, and the only criteria that these albums satisfy are that I like them. I’m afraid that I’m not going to make any hyperbolic statements of greatness, but what I will do is run down some records that for me were memorable, got played a lot, and that I basically loved. You might disagree. Well, I forgive you.
Over here at the UK end of the TMS trans-Atlantic tunnel we’ve been near obsessing over Broken Records’ second LP Let Me Come Home for quite some time now (if you’ve missed me raving over it during the last few months, all I can say is WELL DONE!). But soon North Americans can join the party as the record will see its US release on January 11th; and to celebrate 4AD have made “A Darkness Rises Up” a free download so everyone can see just how marvellous it is.
Broken Records stopped by Vic Galloway’s show on BBC Radio Scotland last week to play some of the new songs from 2nd LP Let Me Come Home; and the beeb have seen fit to share this video from the session of “A Darkness Rises Up” (UK only, sorry!)
Broken Records’ 2nd LP Let Me Come Home is released in the UK today. Last week TMS had a chat with Ian Turnbull from the group about the new record, and what’s been going on in Broken Records’ world since their first record Until the Earth Begins to Part came out in 2009…
TMS: Let Me Come Home is out soon: how do you feel about the new LP?
We’re all really pleased with how it’s turned out. It feels like a definite step forward.
Possibly Let me Come Home doesn’t strike one as the most forceful of LP titles: it’s plaintive, almost needling, perhaps. But the pulse of those 4 monosyllables is juxtaposed with the title of first track “A Leaving Song”, which take a more assertive, strident tone and whose rolling, muscular thunder relays the fact that Broken Records are here, and they mean business on their terms. Yes, this is a record that considers some of the more fragile aspects of relationships: but if it seems like there’s a lot of looking backwards on this record (Let Me Come Home; “We Used to Dream”; “Home”), that’s certainly not the case. Having enlisted Tony Doogan (Mogwai, The Delgados) as producer, this is a group making a manifest step forward from an already pretty high starting point.
Broken Records’ new single “A Darkness Rises up” came out on Monday, and on Monday 25th the band’s second LP Let Me Come Home will be introduced to the world – which you doubtlessly already know, given that I’ve rabbitted on about it so much! The group have also released a video for the single, directed by Jane Pollard, and which can be found over at drownedinsound.
I have to say, it’s also very much worth paying attention to the magnificent beards this band have. Magnificent I tell you! (the song’s pretty good, too)
