Public Service Broadcasting
The Race For Space
Test Card Recordings 7/10

Corduroy-clad duo ditch the kitsch and look to the skies

If Public Service Broadcasting’s last album created Avalanches-style musical collages, blending public information film samples with banjos and beats, the London duo’s second LP is a more focused effort, concentrating on man’s adventures in space. This is no retro-kitsch novelty but a gripping tribute to an extraordinary period in history, much of it drawn from the BFI archive and filtered through Jean-Michelle Jarre-style electronica (“Sputnik”), ’70s soul-funk (“Gagarin”) and, on “Valentine”, a hymn to the first woman in space, post-rock. Rich and evocative, The Race For Space is the sound of two young men gazing heavenwards and dreaming.

Fiona Sturges