Released on 23 February 2015 "The Race For Space" was the second studio album by British alternative group Public Service Broadcasting. Working with sound samples from the British Film Institute, the album relives the story of the American and Soviet space race from 1957–1972. The opening track features the speech by John F. Kennedy on 12 September 1962 at Rice University.
The album reached number 11 in the UK chart and number 1 in the
UK Indie Albums Chart the week following its release. The vinyl edition
was the 5th highest selling record of 2015 in the UK. The album spawned three singles "Go!", "The Other Side" & "Sputnik EP".
Public Service Broadcasting is the innovative work of Londoners J. Willgoose, Esq. and Wrigglesworth. With a clever way to combined looped dance beats and electronics with spoken-word passages culled from old public-service messages, synced to meticulously edited film footage projected while they perform. The album incorporate original news broadcasts and communications between the astronauts and NASA's master control.
From song to song, this tapestry of source material narrates each chapter chronologically, placing the listener inside the drama of the moment — propelled by futuristic tunes that reminds a weirdo combination between Kraftwerk, space rock and Daft Punk.
The album opens with a mood-altering choral overture and JFK's inspirational speech as a haunting invocation. "Space is there, and we're going to climb it. And the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there," Kennedy says, as a soaring choir gives every line extra resonance. The duo crafts tiny instrumental flourishes that illuminate the story. "Sputnik" includes the distant yet unmistakable bleeping of a satellite. In "Valentina," chiming wordless voices from folk duo Smoke Fairies honor cosmonaut Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, the first woman to fly in space. And the somber celestial silence in "Fire In The Cockpit" recounts the deaths of Apollo 1's three crew members.
The exuberant "Gagarin," which bursts with slinky disco riffs and funked-up horn blasts while playing reports about cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space. Meanwhile, "Go!" channels fiery, motorik beats, intricate guitar licks and early 80s., ynths as the Apollo 11 team counts down before landing on the moon — a moment punctuated by Neil Armstrong's famous line, "The Eagle has landed."
"The Other Side," might be the key moment, is about Apollo 8 slingshotting itself around the dark side of the moon. Again, Public Service Broadcasting demonstrates its masterful touch for storytelling when the dusty drum machines momentarily drop out — just as the astronauts lose contact with NASA ground control. The song builds anxiety and tension as we sit nervously for what feels like an eternity — and then swells to a joyful release when the voices from space finally reconnect.
Public Service Broadcasting fittingly closes with "Tomorrow," a melancholic and meditative final statement that admires how far we've come. Decades later, all this can seem like far-off history. But Willgoose and Wrigglesworth's ambitious concept music allows listeners to rekindle that same wonder again. Space still has the capacity to captivate.
