Public Service Broadcasting is a bit of a weird one, honestly. They aren’t your typical four-piece indie outfit singing about heartbreak or late nights in London. Instead, they’ve spent the better part of fifteen years sampling old BFI archive footage and NASA radio transmissions to create what J. Willgoose, Esq.—the band’s mastermind—calls "teaching the lessons of the past through the music of the future." It sounds pretentious. It could have been a disaster. But somehow, it works.
If you’ve ever found yourself getting emotional over a Morse code signal or a 1940s newsreel about the Spitfire, you’ve likely encountered their work. They occupy this strange, beautiful niche where history buffs and electronic music nerds meet. It’s art-rock, but with a library card.
The core of Public Service Broadcasting is a fascination with human achievement and, occasionally, our catastrophic failures. They don't use a lead singer in the traditional sense. You won't find a front-man belting out choruses. Instead, the "vocals" are largely curated from public information films, documentaries, and propaganda loops. It’s a bold move. It’s also surprisingly effective at making you feel something deep for events that happened decades before you were born.
The Early Days and "Inform-Educate-Entertain"
The band started as a solo project for Willgoose back in 2009. He had this idea to sync live drums and guitar with grainy, black-and-white footage. By the time their debut album, Inform-Educate-Entertain, dropped in 2013, they had expanded to include Wrigglesworth on drums. The title of that album is a direct nod to the original mission statement of the BBC, as laid out by Lord Reith. They weren't just making songs; they were building a brand around the idea of public utility.
"Everest," one of their standout tracks from that era, uses narration from the 1953 documentary The Conquest of Everest. It’s a slow build. The horns kick in just as the narrator describes the thin air and the sheer impossibility of the climb. It’s triumphant. When you hear George Mallory’s famous "Because it’s there" line layered over a driving krautrock beat, it hits differently than reading it in a textbook.
That first record set the template. It was about the Post Office Rifles, the fashioning of the Spitfire, and the importance of the nightly mail train. It celebrated the mundane and the monumental with equal fervor. They became the darlings of BBC Radio 6 Music, and for good reason—they were doing something no one else was brave enough to try.
Why The Race for Space Changed Everything
A lot of bands get stuck. They find a "thing" and they beat it into the ground until the audience gets bored and moves on to the next shiny object. Public Service Broadcasting avoided this by going bigger. Much bigger.
The Race for Space, released in 2015, is widely considered their masterpiece. It’s a concept album that tracks the Cold War rivalry between the US and the USSR from 1957 to 1972. It opens with "Sputnik," a track that uses the actual rhythmic "beep" of the first satellite. It feels lonely. It feels cold. Then you get "Gagarin," which is basically a funk-fuelled celebration of Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight, complete with a brass section that wouldn't look out of place in a James Brown track.
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The emotional weight of the album is anchored by "The Other Side." This track documents the Apollo 8 mission as it goes behind the dark side of the moon. For several minutes, there is total radio silence. The music drops away to almost nothing. When the signal finally breaks through and the Mission Control operators start cheering, it’s genuinely moving. It’s a reminder that Public Service Broadcasting isn't just about "found sound"—it's about the human drama behind the technology.
They recorded the album at the Abbey Road Studios, and the production quality reflects that. It’s lush. It’s dense. It’s the kind of record that demands you wear a good pair of headphones and sit in the dark for forty-five minutes.
Moving From Space to the South Wales Valleys
After conquering the moon, where do you go? Most people expected another high-tech epic. Instead, the band went underground. Every Valley, released in 2017, took a sharp turn into the history of the Welsh mining industry.
This wasn't just a shift in subject matter; it was a shift in tone. While The Race for Space was optimistic and outward-looking, Every Valley was somber and political. It dealt with the rise and fall of the coal mines, the miners' strikes of the 1980s, and the eventual decay of the communities that relied on them. They moved the recording equipment to the Ebbw Vale Institute to soak up the atmosphere of the region.
The album features guest vocals from James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers, which adds a layer of authentic Welsh grit to "Turn No More." It’s an angry record in places. It’s also deeply sympathetic. By focusing on the "public service" of the miners, the band proved they weren't just interested in flashy technological milestones. They cared about the people left behind by progress.
The Sound of Berlin and "Bright Magic"
By 2021, the band had moved to Berlin. The resulting album, Bright Magic, is a love letter to the city’s electronic heritage. It’s heavily influenced by Bowie’s "Berlin Trilogy" and the experimental sounds of Kraftwerk and Neu!
Honestly, it's their most "abstract" work. It focuses less on a linear narrative and more on the feeling of a city. It’s about the neon lights, the U-Bahn, and the creative energy that has drawn artists to Berlin for a century. They used a lot of modular synths for this one. It feels more industrial and pulsating than their previous stuff.
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"People, Let’s Dance" is probably the closest they’ve ever come to a straight-up club track. It features Ewan Pearson’s production touches and feels like a night out in Kreuzberg. It’s a long way from the Mount Everest documentaries, but it still feels like the same band. They have this uncanny ability to adapt their sound to their environment without losing their identity.
What Most People Get Wrong About Them
A common criticism is that Public Service Broadcasting is "gimmicky." People think that if you strip away the samples, there isn't much left. That’s just wrong.
Willgoose is a classically trained musician and a meticulous arranger. If you listen to the instrumental tracks—the ones without any voiceovers—they still hold up as incredible pieces of composition. The way they use vibraphones, flugelhorns, and vintage synthesizers creates a rich, textured soundscape that doesn't need the "crutch" of history to be interesting.
Another misconception is that they are purely nostalgic. People assume they just want to live in the 1940s. In reality, the band is quite critical of how we view the past. They use these samples to hold a mirror up to the present. When they play a track about the importance of the NHS (The Last Step), they aren't just being retro; they’re making a point about what we’re losing today.
The Live Experience: More Than Just a Laptop
Seeing Public Service Broadcasting live is a trip. They usually perform surrounded by old television sets piled on top of each other. These screens flicker with the footage that inspired the songs, synced perfectly to the beat.
The band often wears corduroy suits or vintage lab coats. It could feel like a high school history presentation, but the energy is surprisingly high. Wrigglesworth is a powerhouse on the drums, and when they bring out the "JF-10" (a custom-built instrument that triggers samples), it feels like watching a mad scientist at work.
They’ve played everywhere from the Royal Albert Hall to the main stages of Glastonbury and Blue Dot Festival. There is something deeply satisfying about watching thousands of people dance to a song about the development of the jet engine. It’s an intellectual rave.
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Why They Still Matter in 2026
We live in an era of "disposable" music. Everything is designed for a fifteen-second TikTok clip. Public Service Broadcasting is the exact opposite of that. They make albums that require patience. They ask you to research things. They make you look up names like Amelia Earhart or Valentina Tereshkova.
In a world that feels increasingly fractured, their focus on collective human effort feels necessary. Whether it's the workers on a factory floor or the scientists at mission control, their music celebrates what happens when people work together toward a goal.
Their most recent work, The Last Flight, continues this tradition by focusing on the final journey of Amelia Earhart. It’s haunting. It uses the same mix of forensic research and musical intuition that has defined their career. They aren't trying to top the charts; they’re trying to build a library of sound.
How to Get Into Public Service Broadcasting
If you’re new to the band, don’t just hit shuffle on Spotify. You need to listen to their work in chunks. Start with The Race for Space because it’s the most accessible and "cinematic."
Practical Steps for the New Listener:
- Watch the "Gagarin" music video. It features the band dancing with people in astronaut suits. It’s the perfect introduction to their sense of humor and their ability to make history fun.
- Listen to "The Other Side" with no distractions. Don't check your phone. Just listen to the silence in the middle of the track. It’s a masterclass in tension and release.
- Check out the BFI National Archive. Many of the films the band uses are available to watch online. Seeing the original footage for "Night Mail" or "London Can Take It" gives the music an entirely new dimension.
- Look for their live "Live at Brixton" album. It captures the raw energy of their performances and shows how they translate the studio magic to a stage setting.
Public Service Broadcasting isn't just a band; they are curators of our shared history. They remind us that the past isn't just a series of dates in a book—it’s a collection of voices, rhythms, and dreams that still resonate if you know how to listen. They’ve managed to turn the "boring" parts of school into the most exciting parts of a concert. Honestly, that’s a public service in itself.