Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate With Cults Of The Radio Age
 

This album is fucking amazing. I had already listened to it before, but having bought it I now listen to it again and it really is wonderful. I love the fact that it blends almost perfectly both Broadcast's and The Focus Group's styles; something that has not been really understood by a lot of people... It seems like I always hear people complaining about the fact that "IT IS NOT YOUR AVERAGE BROADCAST ALBUM" - they probably thought it would be some new Broadcast thingy with an unknown guest on it. They do not realize that it is not the point of this recording ... I think it is misjudged.
People should be more curious... this record turned me on to that whole "hauntology" thingy and made me discover great things (damn, that "The Transactional Dharma Of Roj" record has to be one of the best of the year!). But most people I read just complain that "OHNO IT IS NOT THE BROADCAST I LOVE". Bleh. Because Broadcast is your favorite band out of the two (it's mine, too) does not mean The Focus Group should be a simple guest.

So yeah, great album. Check it if you haven't already - and check that Roj album, too!

(I must precise it's not like I'm a pissed off The Focus Group fan or anything... I actually discovered The Focus Group with this record! Broadcast is one of my favorite bands...)

I enjoy it

i've only heard transactional dharma of roj once, remember seeing the cover art before it came out and being so excited, i plan on buying it along with witch cults and a ghost box t shirt. i swore off buying records due to funds but in this case i feel the quality of this work merits cash since i have a bit of it. i read a positive review of witch cults which called the be colony 60's pop, and this really annoyed me because it's just entirely missing the point and a false way of describing the music. witch cults is i think the most popular hauntological album so far, if you discount burial of course, which i only do because most people don't see him as hauntological. what was so pathetic about hauntology and h-pop was the reaction of cynical journalists who would namedrop the genres in order to prove they had heard them but in a 'this is the latest trend but of course i'm too much of a nihilistic jaded cool guy to fall for it' kind of way. so they would say something like 'part of the whole hauntology craze that all the kids are down with now' in a detached sarcastic way, and so in a way hauntology did become a trend, despite the people talking about it only being journalists who quite probably hadn't a clue what it actually was supposed to be about. they were bending over backwards in order to dismiss it as the latest hot trend precisely because this would make them look as tho they were totally privy to and beyond the latest coolest thing in music. i mean keenan's hpop article made some tenuous links and of course it tied in nicely with his volcanic tongue shop selling the latest h-pop wares but the content and ideas of the article and the concept of h-pop is actually fascinating. it's the whole post everything cynical nihilistic attitude that hold's back art and music. Hauntological music and hpop (or if you won't accept the terms the bands that people relate to these genre concepts) have been some of the weirdest and most original of the decade.

yeah. (most) music journalists suck. so do people who won't even take the opportunity they're given with records such as this one to discover interesting music that they weren't aware of... eh.
i plan on buying that roj album too, since it's so great. i've got to set up a paypal account for that though, as ghost box won't accept my debit card. this and the focus group's "we are all pan's people" are amongst the best albums of the decade in my opinion...

They were a phantasmagoric weirdfest, when I went to see them recently. They made me think of how many times certain bands are called weird when in fact they merely scratch the surface of genuinely strange-sounding music.

i really love this album
have nooo idea who the focus group are but ill deffo check them out!