Following yesterday’s live session for Steve Lamacq at Maida Vale which is available to hear on BBC Radio 6 Music now here (at 2:05:50), Public Service Broadcasting today share “Towards The Dawn”, the final single from their fifth studio album, The Last Flight, released this week on Friday 4 October via SO Recordings.
The deep twangs, angelic choir and propulsive backbeat of the heart-bursting “Towards The Dawn” is another Public Service Broadcasting gold-standard hymn to flight, after 2012’s “Spitfire”. An album highlight, the track thrusts the listener into the thick of the narrative as Amelia Earhart sets off on her round-the-world voyage. The sense of adventure and excitement is heightened by the propulsive and high-energy nature of the music, helping to capture the drama and optimism of the moment of departure as well as hinting at darker, more dangerous events to come. Listen to the song here.
The Last Flight, released this Friday, concerns the final voyage of America’s pioneering female aviator, Amelia Earhart. (Pre-save it here).
In 1922, aged just 25, Earhart flew higher than any woman before her, and in the years that followed she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, setting multiple speed and distance records. In 1937 she announced that she would circumnavigate the globe in her Lockheed Model 10-E Electra aircraft. She crossed the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. She left Papua New Guinea to fly to Howland Island in the Central Pacific but never made it, instead ascending to the level of myth reserved for the bravest adventurers.
The Last Flight is similarly full of life-force, evoking adventure, speed and freedom as well as the psychological depths of a unique and admirable individual. Recorded in the band’s southeast London studio, with one day for strings at The Church in north London with the London Contemporary Orchestra, The Last Flight‘s guests include Carl Broemel from My Morning Jacket on Eno-esque pedal steel, Berlin voices Andreya Casablanca and EERA who both appeared on Bright Magic, as well as This Is The Kit’s Kate Stables. The album does not feature original first-person testimony, but dialogue newly recorded by actors, including Kate Graham who read Amelia. This was then sensitively manipulated to give thirties sonic characteristics and distortion. Earhart’s first-hand writings including 1937’s Last Flight was used as a start point, along with the biography East To The Dawn by Susan Butler.
The album follows a series of releases this year including the deep dive into her outlook on life on “The Fun Of It”, “Electra”, a song of soaring machine-funk and a paean to Earhart’s aircraft which was A-Listed at BBC Radio 6 Music, and “The South Atlantic” (Ft. This Is The Kit), the ominous orchestral ode to her determination and passion.
Speaking about the album, the band’s first studio album since 2021’s Bright Magic, J. Willgoose Esq. said “I wanted to do a woman-focused story, because most of the archive we have access to is overwhelmingly male. I was initially drawn in by Earhart’s final fight, rather than the successes that she had, but the more I read the more I became fascinated by her. Her bravery and her aeronautical achievements were extraordinary, but her philosophy and the dignity that she had… she was an outstanding person.
The final flight is the spine of the journey: the story jumps off at different points, and examines different facets of her personality, her relationship with her husband, her attitude to flying, her attitude to existing. She gave herself, I think, less than a 50% chance of survival when she flew the Atlantic alone. To put yourself, willingly, in those situations… I think it says something about that drive at the heart of humanity.
However The Last Flight isn’t doom-laden or covered in grief. There’s adventure, freedom, the joy of being alive. The reason why she wanted to fly was to find the beauty in living – ‘to know the reason why I’m alive, and to feel that every minute.’ The flight did fail, but she was right. Of all the people we’ve written about, I have the deepest respect and admiration for her.”
Following a show at Trentham Live opening for Manic Street Preachers, Public Service Broadcasting will perform an Instore and Outstore tour during the week of album release in early October (tickets here). The band also has a full UK and European tour scheduled for October and November 2024, with shows in Manchester, Bristol and London already sold out. UK support will come from Halo Maud. Live dates are listed below and tickets are available here.
Instore/Outstore tour (tickets here):
Fri 4 Oct – UK, Leeds, Crash – daytime – Store – signing only
Fri 4 Oct – UK, Manchester, Piccadilly – evening – Outstore at Night & Day (SOLD OUT)
Sat 5 Oct – UK, Liverpool, Jacaranda – evening – Outstore at The Baltic (SOLD OUT)
Sun 6 Oct – UK, Southampton, Vinilo – evening – Outstore at The Brook
Mon 7 Oct – UK, Bristol, Rough Trade – matinee – Outstore at Strange Brew (SOLD OUT)
Mon 7 Oct – UK, Bristol, Rough Trade – evening – Outstore at Strange Brew (SOLD OUT)
Tue 8 Oct – UK, Kingston, Banquet – evening – Outstore at Pryzm (SOLD OUT)
Wed 9 Oct – UK, Glasgow, Assai – evening – Outstore at Oran Mor
Thu 10 Oct – UK, Edinburgh, Assai – evening – Outstore at The Liquid Rooms
UK + European tour:
Wed 16 Oct – UK, Glasgow, Barrowland (SOLD OUT)
Thu 17 Oct – UK, Aberdeen, Music Hall Aberdeen
Fri 18 Oct – UK, Manchester, Albert Hall (SOLD OUT)
Sat 19 Oct – UK, Leeds, O2 Academy Leeds
Mon 21 Oct – UK, Gateshead, The Glasshouse International Centre for Music (SOLD OUT)
Tue 22 Oct – UK, Nottingham, Rock City
Thu 24 Oct – UK, Coventry, Warwick Arts Centre
Fri 25 Oct – UK, Cambridge, Corn Exchange (SOLD OUT)
Sat 26 Oct – UK, Bristol, Bristol Beacon (SOLD OUT)
Mon 28 Oct – UK, Cardiff, Cardiff University, Great Hall
Tue 29 Oct – UK, London, Roundhouse (SOLD OUT)
Wed 30 Oct – UK, Brighton, Brighton Dome (SOLD OUT)
Thu 31 Oct – UK, Aylesbury, Friars Aylesbury at The Waterside Theatre
Sat 2 Nov – Ireland, Dublin, 3Olympia Theatre
Sun 3 Nov – UK, Belfast, The Telegraph Building
Mon 4 Nov – Ireland, Cork, Cyprus Avenue
Sun 10 Nov – Netherlands, Amsterdam, Melkweg (Oude Zaal) (SOLD OUT)
Mon 11 Nov – Belgium, Brussels, Ancienne Belgique Club (SOLD OUT)
Tue 12 Nov – Germany, Cologne, Club Volta
Wed 13 Nov – Netherlands, Groningen, Vera
Thu 14 Nov – Germany, Hamburg, Knust
Sat 16 Nov – Norway, Oslo, Blå
Sun 17 Nov – Sweden, Stockholm, Kägelbanan
Mon 18 Nov – Denmark, Copenhagen, Vega
Tue 19 Nov – Germany, Berlin, Columbia Theatre
Wed 20 Nov – Germany, Munich, Ampere
Thu 21 Nov – Switzerland, Zurich, Mascotte
Sat 23 Nov – Italy, Milan, Arci Bellezza
Mon 25 Nov – Spain, Barcelona, La Nau
Tue 26 Nov – Spain, Madrid, Sala Copérnico
Wed 27 Nov – Spain, San Sebastian, Dabadaba Club
Fri 29 Nov – France, Paris, Petit Bain
Public Service Broadcasting, and their stirring archival narratives for cinematic rock, electronics and orchestra, have been with us since 2009. Led by instrumentalist-auteur J. Willgoose, Esq., these masters of conceptual pop historiography have depicted humankind scaling Everest and confronting Nazism on 2013’s Inform-Educate-Entertain, and launching into the cosmos on The Race For Space in 2015. 2017’s Every Valley then examined societal struggle via Britain’s coal industry, while 2021’s Bright Magic was a dizzying portrait of Euro-metropolis Berlin. 2023’s This New Noise, recorded live at the BBC Proms, was a love letter to the national broadcaster in its most elemental form. In each case, what was removed in time and specific in nature became vital and universal, as the human spirit was fathomed and saluted.
