The Race For Space

Public Service Broadcasting’s second album ‘The Race For Space’ was partly recorded at Miloco’s The Pool, including three days tracking drums, brass and strings.

PSB’s songs see them weave samples from old public information films, archive footage and propaganda material around drums, guitar, banjo and electronics.

“I was keen to work on another conceptual record after ‘The War Room – EP’ which we released in 2012,” said J. Willgoose Esq, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer of the London-based duo. “I’ve been interested in space exploration since before I can remember, and also liked the fact that it’d give us an excuse to expand our sound and our range of instrumentation.”

PSB tracked two drum kits at The Pool, the Slingerland and the Premier, for the USA and USSR tracks respectively. “The Slingerland sounded absolutely enormous,” J. said. “Poor Wriggles [drummer] could barely reach the toms.”

PSB also tracked a six-piece brass section for ‘Gagarin’ and five-piece strings for a few tracks. A lot of the sound for the brass and strings came from a medium-range pair of Coles mics. And for the Premier kit, which was set up in the drum booth, a great deal came from a Neumann fet 47 mic set up in the main room.

“We did a bit of vibraphone tracking too – again a very simple setup but it worked fine in the room,” J. said. “Overall we had a great time, even if we did eat a few too many of the rhubarb custards on reception (sorry, teeth). Jonathan [Sagis, assistant] was also extremely helpful and even provided some excellent handclaps for our song ‘Go!’.”

Jake Young