London, UK-based Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) is more of an art project than a band. Working closely with the British Film Institute (BFI), this duo takes audio from old public information films, archive footage, and propaganda material, and adds drum ‘n’ bass music, in an attempt to – in the words of the band – “inform, educate, and entertain” their audience. The duo’s latest endeavor The Race For Space, as the name suggests, is an album reliving the US-USSR space race.

PSB’s music is sort of like Moby from his Play/18 phase, but with the incorporation of sound samples of “spoken” nature rather than “sung” one. But there is only so much creativity that one can squeeze out of the concept of adding beats to archival sound recordings. This idea lost its fizz in Moby’s music after just one album. But PSB has tried out this concept already on their prior releases, The War Room EP and Inform-Educate-Entertain, which were both centered on sound archives from the BFI.  And even though it is the same trick repeated again on The Race For Space, the duo manages to keep the conceit fresh, which makes this disc comes out a winner.

One of the reasons why The Race For Space is such an exceptionally good album is that the band doesn’t let the concept take over the music; this is notable, given how easy it is to get carried away by the idea of space travel in an album. The other is that band members J. Wilgoose Esq and Wrigglesworth are just fantastic songsmiths, plain and simple. This would have been as good a record with the music just by itself and without anything else.

At the same time, however, the duo is simply brilliant in how they use and intertwine the archival audio with the music. Take “Gagarin,” for example, a track that lauds the feat of the first human in space. With its upbeat and uber-catchy Latin-tinged music, this track sounds more like an advertisement for an enticing tropical paradise. This is kind of brilliantly cheeky and befitting in the context of the space race, calling to mind the glory and prestige that certain nations were able to achieve by conquering this new real estate – space – much to the envy of those who couldn’t.  

Another example is the cut “Go!,” where the band uses the abrupt tone of the word “go,” and creates an energetic dance-punk number around it that sounds anything but cheesy. The word “go” is repeated comically and relentlessly throughout the song, providing an invigorating rhythmic backbone.

From the enervatingly uptempo “Gagarin” and “Go!” to the beautifully somber “Valentina” and “The Other Side,” The Race For Space does a fantastic job musically depicting all the emotions of the space race, an era of pioneers exploring and conquering the unknown. On the other hand, the musical journey that J. Wilgoose Esq and Wrigglesworth are trying to charter on this record has been explored and exploited to the point that there is nothing more to discover.

Rating: A-

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