down the aisles, along the titles where you're

I’ve been laboring uncomfortably deep into the night over the past couple of weeks – but thankfully, everything’s slated to complete before Christmas – and the casually chic music of Broadcast has been subbing as my musical companion; specifically, the Ha Ha Sound and Tender Buttons (*) LPs along with The Book Lovers EP. The latter, an early four-song release from 1997 later to be compiled into Work and Non Work, is probably my nostalgic favorite from Broadcast’s body of work; never mind that their uniquely warped sound aesthetics has yet to fully coalesce, and that the still-fledging outfit were mining the same territory as bands like Stereolab but with somewhat less convincing results. The sublime title cut is an early taste of what would make Broadcast’s name: Trish Keenan’s bewitching voice, the way the song straddle the 4 a.m. dream-lucidity/psychedelic divide, and the band’s dead-on ability to dose up “The Book Lovers” with just the right amount of retro flavor.

* I never quite liked their 2005 album Tender Buttons back then when I first heard it but I have slowly warmed to it. And now it strikes me as perhaps their most radical and bravest album yet, an almost-impenetrable din of lo-fi unease and ghostly acoustics that does justice to those Young Marble Giants comparisons. Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet?