Public Service Broadcasting’s acclaimed fifth studio album, The Last Flight, is out now via So Recordings. The record, which reached number 3 in the UK’s Official Album Charts and number 1 in the Independent Album Charts, concerns the final voyage of America’s pioneering female aviator, Amelia Earhart.
Tickets for the tour are on general sale now and available here: https://publicservicebroadcasting.net/events
Public Service Broadcasting live dates:
Tue 18 Mar - Truro, Hall for Cornwall
Weds 19 Mar - Bath, The Forum
Thu 20 Mar - Oxford, New Theatre
Fri 21 Mar- Wolverhampton, University of Wolverhampton, Wulfrun Hall
Sun 23 Mar - Liverpool, Olympia
Tue 25 Mar - Edinburgh, Usher Hall
Wed 26 Mar - Sheffield, Octagon Theatre
Thu 27 Mar - York, Barbican
Fri 28 Mar - Bexhill, De La Warr Pavilion
Sat 29 Mar - Margate, Dreamland Hall By The Sea
The Last Flight is 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 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 previous album, 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 features a series of singles including the deep dive into Amelia Earhart’s outlook on life on “The Fun Of It”; “Electra”, (A-Listed at BBC Radio 6 Music), a song of soaring machine-funk and a paean to her aircraft, “The South Atlantic” (Ft. This Is The Kit), an ominous orchestral ode to her determination and passion, and finally, “Towards The Dawn”.
Speaking about the album, which received 4*s in MOJO, The Sun, The Times, NARC, God Is In The TV and more, 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.”