Broadcast: Tender Buttons [WARP]

Why you'll love it

This Warp pressing comes with a printed inner sleeve of lyrics and credits plus a download card. Pitchfork ranked Tender Buttons No. 7 among the 30 best dream pop albums, and British GQ named it one of the 10 best electronic albums of all time.

This edition

• Printed inner sleeve with lyrics
• Download card included
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Named after Gertrude Stein's 1914 book of word portraits, Tender Buttons is what happened when Broadcast slimmed down to its core. With the rest of the band gone, Trish Keenan and James Cargill wrote, played, recorded and mixed it themselves in Birmingham, swapping the earlier records' lush layers for drum machines, fuzzed synths and a lot more air.

GQ India heard the forgotten sounds of obscure 60s pop, 70s children's television and car-boot sale synthesisers, which is about right. "I Found The F" opens in a crackle, "Black Cat" and the title track pair Keenan's cool, quietly commanding voice with her crossword-puzzle lyrics, "America's Boy" was the single, and "Tears In The Typing Pool" is one of the prettiest things they ever made. "Michael A Grammar" buzzes, and "You And Me In Time" drifts. Roj Stevens and Tim Felton make cameo appearances, and Julian House did the artwork. On vinyl, "Bit 35" and "Subject To The Ladder" move up to close side A.

musicOMH called it arguably their finest moment. Stein spent her book rearranging everyday objects into strange new shapes, which is more or less what Broadcast did with a drum machine.

Also at Kops: more Broadcast on vinyl · browse Electronic

Tracklist

Listen

On Warp (cat# WARP LP136R), a reissue of the 2005 album.