Public Service Broadcasting: Raiding the archives at York Barbican
PUBLIC Service Broadcasting make their York Barbican debut on Thursday on their ten-date March itinerary.
The spring tour follows last October’s release of the ever-evolving Londoners’ Top Three-charting fifth studio album, The Last Flight, with its exploration of the final voyage of American female aviator Amelia Earhart on July 2 1937 in a study of adventure, speed, freedom and the psychological depths of this pioneering life-force.
Recorded in the band’s southeast London studio, with strings added by the London Contemporary Orchestra at The Church in north London, the album was prompted by band leader J Wildgoose Esq’s desire to do a woman-focused story, “because most of the archive we have access to is overwhelmingly male”.
“I was initially drawn in by Earhart’s final fight, rather than the successes that she had, but the more I read, the more I became fascinated by her,” he says. “Her bravery and her aeronautical achievements were extraordinary, but her philosophy and the dignity that she had… she was an outstanding person.
“The final flight is the spine of the journey: the story jumps off at different points and examines different facets of her personality, her relationship with her husband, her attitude to flying, her attitude to existing.”
The artwork for Public Service Broadcasting’s October 2024 album The Last Flight
Wildgoose continues: She gave herself, I think, less than a 50 per cent chance of survival when she flew the Atlantic alone. To put yourself, willingly, in those situations…I think it says something about that drive at the heart of humanity.
“However The Last Flight isn’t doom-laden or covered in grief. There’s adventure, freedom, the joy of being alive. The reason why she wanted to fly was to find the beauty in living: ‘to know the reason why I’m alive, and to feel that every minute’. The flight did fail, but she was right. Of all the people we’ve written about, I have the deepest respect and admiration for her.”
Thursday’s set list will draw on all five themed Public Service Broadcasting albums: 2013’s Inform – Educate – Entertain, 2015’s The Race For Space, 2017’s Every Valley, 2021’s Bright Magic and 2024’s The Last Flight. “Naturally, the most focus is on the new one with six or seven from that one and plenty of space for songs we couldn’t leave out, like Go!, Spitfire and Everest,” says Wildgoose.
“But we change it every night, maybe changing three or four songs a night or maybe the order. I don’t know how some bands play the same set every night on a tour. The bands who I’ve loved over the ages, like Radiohead at the Roundhouse [London] on three May nights in 2016, they changed the set every night. One of my favourite bands, My Morning Jacket, they always change the set.
“The only thing it does require is a lot more work to make sure the musicians can play the songs to the right standard; and Mr B, who does our visuals and set design, has to be sure the visuals are right for every show.
“It’s the fullest, richest and most varied sound we’ve had,” says J Wildgoose Esq of Public Service Broadcasting’s 2025 configuration
“The musicians are equipped to play 37 songs with 12 that we can’t leave out. We normally have a bit of a chat at the soundcheck, and if there’s anything we’re not comfortable to run with, we’ll try it out.”
Since the conceptual art exploits of Bright Magic, Public Service Broadcasting have four core members: Wildgoose on guitar, banjo, other stringed instruments, samples and electronic musical instruments; Wrigglesworth on drums, piano and electronic instruments; J F Abraham on flugelhorn, bass guitar, drums and vibraslap and the aforementioned Mr B.
“Back in the early days, it was just me, and actually it was really lonely, just me packing things into the car and thinking, ‘this is too lonely’. You need someone else to be there with you to share it,” says Wildgoose.
On this month’s tour, the staple quartet are joined by Norwegian singer EERA and three brass musicians. “It’s the fullest, richest and most varied sound we’ve had. We always try to enrich every album with more upbeat numbers, slower numbers. In the early days, we could only play the same songs each show, but now we have so many more options.”
“We will always wear corduroy: it’s the thread that’s woven through our career,” says Public Service Broadcasting’s J Wildgoose Esq
Each album takes considerable preparation. “Each time it has to be something that intrigues me as it’s a big undertaking to write a record. The world is not short of stories, but it’s also that thing of how do we tell that story; whether we use archive material or material that’s not recorded, or forsaking any narrative, as we did for Bright Magic [the history, myth and nightlife of Berlin album], and then returning to a really narrative album for The Last Flight,” says Wildgoose.
“I think I have something in mind for the next one, which is exciting, but daunting, especially the time frame involved. I’ll start in July this summer and bring it out in 2027. Why so long? Other bands don’t need such a long build –up that I do for the research.”
As ever, Public Service Broadcasting will be wearing corduroys at York Barbican on Thursday. “Absolutely! That will never change. We even wore white corduroys that we had specially made for Bright Magic,” says Wildgoose. “We will always wear corduroy: it’s the thread that’s woven through our career.”
Should you be wondering whether Public Service Broadcasting have played York previously, the answer is yes. “Fibbers, twice, maybe three times,” says Wildgoose. “Once was for DV8, a Goth trance festival. I did wonder if they knew who we were!”
Public Service Broadcasting, supported by She Drew The Gun, York Barbican, Thursday, doors 7pm. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk. Also playing Sheffield Octagon Wednesday, doors 7pm. Box office: ticketmaster.co.uk.