Outside Broadcast

About

Little is known about Outside Broadcast. Its members (number unknown) shun “personality publicity” and photographs and keep media interviews to a minimum. They’ve been making music for some unspecified time – their retrospective compilation First Transmissions features tracks dating back to 2007 and there is reference to the Blue Rider Music project prior to that. However their musical output joined the mainstream in 2020 with the release of their debut album Modality during the height of worldwide pandemic lockdown. When pushed, they claim to be “a loose collective of astral projections of timeless inter-dimensional beings with a timely warning for humanity – change the system or face the cataclysmic consequences.” Their avatars are drawn from the work of contemporary British-Asian artist Permindar Kaur and her striking Claws series of sculptures. Currently operating out of Cardiff, South Wales, the IDM/Experimental ‘electronauts’ boast an eclectic range of musical and artistic influences spanning the centuries, from Mozart and Kandinsky to Maribou State and Kaur. Among that list is The Residents and Sun Ra, which may explain their nod to the Theory of Obscurity and claims of extra-terrestrial connections. Outside Broadcast’s motto could easily be ‘something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’ to create a perfect marriage of musical styles and influences. The Blue Rider art movement and its counter-culture audio-visual principles sit proudly at the heart of music that draws heavily on the influences of electronic music pioneers of the 1960s and 1970s – not least the German ‘Krautrock’ collective including Tangerine Dream, Can, Kraftwerk, Neu, Faust and Amon Duul II, alongside the likes of British psychedelic rock’s Hawkwind, Gong, Tim Blake and Pink Floyd. But these ‘old’ influences are fused with more modern inspiration in the form of Autechre, Burial, Clams Casino, Jon Hopkins, Cristobal Tapia de Veer and art rockers Everything Everything to create a distinctive new genre-bending sound that remains evocative of a rich and eclectic musical history. Use of sampled vocals and spoken word – the ‘borrowed’ – often drawing from world music and dystopic film and fiction influences underline the messaging that runs through Outside Broadcast’s music.

On Spotify