Broadcast: Tender Buttons Vinyl LP

I’ve been listening to this album a lot. Not even consciously, mind you: I’ve just been defaulting to it the same way I did Camino Del Sol and Title TK. It’s just a very easy album to like. I wouldn’t call it life changing, but I’d give it a solid rating on the “No one understands my haunted, fragmented beauty” playlist. Allow me to first say that I have a soft spot for girls who sing over lo-fi indie arrangements, and Broadcast up this ante by throwing in blips and fuzz, psych and shoegaze. Tender Buttons is defined by simple arrangements, airy vocals, and rudimentary songwriting. But it’s exactly that seemingly fumbling, faux-artless delivery that lingers. The closest group I can liken them to is either Department of Eagles or Young Marble Giants, but there’s also the pop sheen of the Zombies and the Let’s Stay In Bed Forever quality of My Bloody Valentine. Tracks like “I Found The F,” “Black Cat,” “Tender Buttons,” “America’s Boy” and “Goodbye Girls” may entice you, and I’m calling “Tears In The Typing Pool” as my favorite, but the album really stands on its cohesiveness, which requires a beginning-to-end listening. An understated gem.

• official reissue of Broadcast’s3rd studioalbum
• black vinyl pressing
• digital download included
• riginal release year: 2005
• music label: Warp Records 2015

reviewed by the woodman 11/2005