Public Service Broadcasting and The Race for Space

Public Service Broadcasting's second album The Race for Space saw J. Willgoose, Esq. and Wrigglesworth explore spine-tingling, extraterrestrial territory. Over nine songs, the album documents the triumphs and traumas of the space race, using archive material and luscious, emotional soundscapes to celebrate the ingenuity and bravery of the astronauts and scientists so determined to set a human upon the moon.

On 12 April the band will pay tribute to Yuri Gagarin by performing The Race for Space in full at the Usher Hall as part of Edinburgh's International Science Festival, accompanied by some very special musical guests and compered by science enthusiast, comedian and broadcaster Helen Keen. With a brand new album Every Valley due in June (more on that later!), it's an appropriately glorious send-off for an album which launched the self-proclaimed "extremely geeky" band into the top 20. We gave J. a bell to find out all about the show, and the frankly incredible places that The Race for Space has taken them.

The Skinny: Hi J.! Is this the last time you'll be playing The Race for Space in full, d'you think? 

J. Willgoose, Esq: Well, I'd never say never! It's only the second time we've been asked to do it anyway, so... I don't know! I guess it depends how long a life it has. I always just copy the ideas of my favourite bands, basically, and My Morning Jacket, when they got to album five, they booked a week at a sort of modest capacity venue in New York and played one album every night for a week. So if we get to album five, I'm not ruling that out! 

On 12 April, it'll be fifty-six years to the day that Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Can you tell us about working with the National Youth Choir of Scotland and string quartet Mr McFall's Chamber to bring together such a special show at the Usher Hall?

We're lucky enough to all be rehearsing together in Usher Hall the day before, so we're going to get very well acquainted. We're having our own little rehearsal, just amongst us, too – because it's been the longest I can remember without a gig, really. In terms of a real, full-length gig it's been about four or five months, which is pretty much unheard of since we got going! We just need to try and make sure we remember it all. I think the reason we've been asked to do this gig is because we did a similar thing for the Manchester Science Festival in October, and obviously word gets around that there's an extremely geeky band doing very specialised... [laughs]. Errr... a very specialised concert experience! Then Edinburgh popped up and asked us. 

It must be a compliment, that your music's so suited to all sorts of different environments?

A lot of people, when we first started out, seemed to get hung up on a very narrow thought or idea of what it was we were doing, and I never saw it as a limiting thing. I think it's incredibly freeing to be able to write about these events, and bring a depth – hopefully – to these songs and these albums that is drawing on a lot of other things, and therefore is interesting to a lot of other people. That's one of the main strengths of it, really!

Absolutely! And it's seen you play in some incredible locations. I'm thinking of the RAF Museum?

Yep, that was fun!

And the WWII aircraft carrier; USS Intrepid? Other bands don't get to do that...

We're pretty lucky! These gigs are never straight-forward, but playing on an actual aircraft carrier, underneath a space shuttle? It was like... yeah. I was walking back towards all the bright lights of New York after the first gig, thinking this... this is a bit unusual, isn't it? This is quite nice.

The Race for Space resonated with so many people, and I think space has that strange power to it, doesn't it? It's something that we don't reallly understand, fully, but everyone wants to talk about it. I was wondering if you've had any strange post-show discussions with fans/space enthusiasts?

Well, you speak to all sorts of people, and one of the things I learned, even all the way back to Spitfire [from PSB's first album Inform-Educate-Entertain], is how all-consuming some of these passions become for people. It's been an eye opener really. I think probably the high point was getting to meet Gene Cernan in Austin a couple of years ago – he sadly died a few months back, but he was the last man to walk on the moon. You don't really think when you're sitting there, writing these songs in a garage in South East London, that you're going to end up doing all these things and meeting all these people! It's quite humbling.

The album's about what, as a human species, pushes us to our greatest technological and, in the end, spiritual achievements: leaving our own world and looking back on it. And sadly, what pushes us to that point is two superpowers competing to have the technology to blow each other up more efficiently. It's horrible that that's underneath it all. Progress – it's at least a double-edged sword. 

And Progress happens to be the title of the first single from Every Valley...

Yeah, and on the surface, it's quite an optimistic song. We've got Traceyanne [Campbell, of Camera Obscura] sounding very optimistic, but there is that hint of yearning that's in her voice? The song's become more and more relevant the longer it's sat on the shelf, really – and for it to be coming out now, while there's lots of talk about alteration and the cost, and the industries that are going to become subject to it, and the jobs that might be lost. What it really reminds me is that for some people, this process has already been going on for decades.

---

Public Service Broadcasting play Usher Hall on 12 Apr as part of Edinburgh's International Science Festival, and their third album Every Valley will be released on 7 July via Play It Again Sam