Published on
March 2, 2015
Category
Features
Broadcast
‘Unchanging Window / Chord Simple’
(From Extended Play Two, Warp/Tommy Boy, 2000)
The band closed 2000 with the release of a second Extended Play record, this time featuring newly recorded material and a far superior take on two The Noise Made By People-era cuts. It is arguably the defining document of Broadcast’s five-person lineup, and a fitting closure to their first era. Extended Play Two plays like a more concentrated interpretation of The Noise Made By People’s wintry cabin fever. Stunning opener ‘Illumination’ glides across a throbbing pulse that anchors Keenan’s soaring chorus vocals, while ‘A Man For Atlantis’ and ‘Poem Of Dead Song’ explore schizophrenic stop-start tempo shifts and spectral synth melodies.
The show-stealing reworks of The Noise Made By People‘s ‘Unchanging Window’ and B-side instrumental ‘Chord Simple’, here fused together into one monolithic tune, showcase the band’s increased strength in every member’s performance; where the album version was relaxed, reluctant, and reserved, this one is a commanding rendition that increases the tension, the weight, and the dynamics. The band had been touring extensively around this time, and Extended Play Two’s songs greatly benefit from that tightened interplay. Most surprising are Keenan’s vocals – where she once displayed a near timid calm, her voice now carries with newfound confidence and assertion. Broadcast give these performances their all, and that increased power would carry over into the sessions for their next album.