Review: Broadcast - Extended Play

Artist: Broadcast
Title: Extended Play
Format: 12" single
Label: Warp
Catalogue Number: 7WAP132
Year of Release: 2000

Tracklisting
A1 Papercuts
A2 Belly Dance
B1 Where Youth And Laughter Go
B2 Dave’s Dream

The second single released before The Noise Made By People, Papercuts opens the EP with quasi-harpsichord synth sounds and waltz-time drumming, and a familiar Broadcast lyric describing a lonely and dysfunctional relationship:

You can't pretend cause I can see
You're not the boy you used to be
Trust me with a secret you can't keep

I watch your eyes they shift with doubt
So every night when stars come out
I try to read your personality 

The writing for pleasure you wouldn't let me read
The things you miss out when you try to mislead
You said you wrote a page about me
In your diary

The lyrics resolve into an ambiguously hopeful ending, "Don't be so afraid/There's bound to be a place/No matter who or where you are/You've got to be willing", but then the song ends with some rather mangled guitar noise, suggesting maybe it's not so hopeful. Great opener to the EP though.

The following three tunes were all collected on The Future Crayon. Belly Dance is largely a Morricone-esque instrumental, beginning with a heavy tom beat, bells and chanting. Synthesizers join half-way through in a break-down of sorts, then all component parts are layered back on to a fade. There's then an extra minute or so of slow two-note synth riffing and train noises, for no good reason I can think of other than that they are quite nice.

Where Youth And Laughter Go would easily have been strong enough a song to include on The Noise... and it's a wonder it was left off. Full of aaaah-aaaahs, la-la-las, vibraphones and wistfulness. More deftly deployed guitar sounds too.

It is followed by a short, uncredited instrumental, based on a high-pitched synth line; an unnecessary addition, but a nice bonus for the vinyl purchaser. It doesn't appear to have been added on to The Future Crayon either. I bought this as a promo 12", which explains the lack of artwork photos above, and maybe also explains this extra tune.

The final number starts with a Casio beat, before being joined by proper drums and various synthesizers. It chugs along nicely with some wordless vocals, then breaks down and comes back together. Nothing earth-shattering, but not bad. No idea who the Dave is of the title though.