Dr Beachcombing of Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog kindly dropped me a line to alert me to his post about Public Service Broadcasting, a British music duo who draw on old propaganda and information films for inspiration and samples. A number of these are from the Second World War period, including 'Spitfire', 'London Can Take It', 'Dig For Victory', and 'Lit Up'. My favourite is the one above, 'If War Should Come'. Based on the 1939 GPO film of the same name, despite/because of the remixing and the electronica it is nicely evocative of the shadow of the bomber.

I'm reminded somehow of MARRS's 'Pump Up The Volume' (above), released in 1987 along with a music video featuring footage from the Space Race. It's not quite the same: there's no reason to think that MARRS had cosmonaut training sequences or space probe graphics in mind when they produced the song; it's just a cool collection of images to go along with the music. I also tend to doubt that the video had much to do with the popular success or subsequent influence of 'Pump Up The Volume'. But I must admit the astronautical connection is largely why I liked it. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you're interested in the sorts of things discussed in this blog then Public Service Broadcasting are certainly worth a look.

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