To say Public Service Broadcasting is novel is an understatement. This London duo, view made up of multiinstrumentalists J. Wilgoose, look Esq and Wrigglesworth, try are forgoing singing and letting a mix of samples from old newsreels, public information videos and propaganda films to do the talking for them. Interspersing these throughout a song, they create singular, thematically ambitious tracks that tackle everything from the advent of the color television to the Blitz of London in WWII. Artists have used old clips to tackle ideas before, sure, but never with the intelligence and cohesion of this project.

But PSB is never a novelty. While the sampling is the most striking thing about their tracks, it’s the band’s dynamic and forward-thinking attitude to songwriting that makes them so listenable. There are bits of post rock here, shades of krautrock there, and a heavy respect towards psychedelic rock throughout, but they never let themselves get bogged down in observance to any style, making for tracks that sound incredibly fresh even if their lyrical content is steeped in the past. And while guitar and drums are the primary instruments, the duo work in synths, MIDI, piano and even banjo—both in the studio and live—to keep a constantly shifting palette of sounds.

Coming off the release of their excellent concept album The Race to Space, which singularly focuses on both Russian and American efforts to break through the final frontier, PSB is heading off on a US tour. We checked in with guitarist and sampler J. Wilgoose Esq ahead of their show at Great Scott tomorrow night. He told us about his approach to clip gathering, the band’s relationship with the British Film Institute and the risks of suing oneself.

Allston Pudding: Public Service Broadcasting is a very bold, experimental sort of project. What kinds of musical projects were you involved with before this?

J. Wilgoose, Esq: Just your usual kind of thing—guitar-y bands at school and university and then after. A couple of post-rock experimental types too, plus a bit of home-made electronic music on the side as I got to grips with recording my own stuff at home. None of which will ever see the light of day, I hope!

AP: Where did the idea of sampling old news and propaganda clips first come from? Was there a fascination with history that played into it?

JW: Almost the opposite—the fascination was with the sound and the character in the recordings, and how evocative they seemed of a different era. I liked the idea of playing more contemporary-sounding music around them, and was basically just trying to sound like DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing and failing miserably. The very first kernel of an idea came from a BBC Radio 4 documentary which detailed the release of some BFI material online for the first time. I made a song for my own enjoyment from one of them, and things grew very naturally (and quite slowly) from there, really.

AP: Do you tend to find the samples first and then write the songs from there, or write based on concept and figure out the exact clips later on?

JW: There’s no set process. With some songs it’s the former, and with some others it’s the latter. “Go!” and “The Other Side” were the former and “Gagarin” and “Sputnik,” for example, the latter.

AP: How did your relationship with the British Film Institute develop?

JW: I just phoned them up one day, when I was starting to take PSB a bit more seriously and think about arranging things above board, as it were. After a brief initial period of confusion they gave us the thumbs up and have been incredibly supportive, accommodating and helpful since then. They are a fantastic bunch of people.

AP: Your samples seem very focused on the British world outlook from various years gone past. Have you given thought to trying more recent news clips?

JW: Indeed, yes. I like the perspective that the distance from the events gives us, for now, although we are gradually moving forwards in time. If we’re still a band in 30 years time (very unlikely) then we might be vaguely relevant by then. Who knows. And though the way we present ourselves is perhaps typically British (Open University/BBC 70s-era maybe in particular), the material has come from all over—the USA, our Dutch tracks, the UK stuff and obviously the new album’s primarily American and Russian focus. We’re certainly not Little Englanders in our worldview or outlook!

AP: The new album The Race For Space is obviously something of a concept album. What attracted you to the idea of the Space Race?

JW: Everything, really. What’s not to attract you to the space race? The politics, the technology, the stories of bravery, success, tragedy and overall human endeavour and achievement—it has it all. It also brought us further forward in time and allowed us to push the sound of the album further than if we’d been writing about a more mundane subject.

AP: You previously did the concept thing with The War Room EP. Do you see more concept releases in PSB’s future, or more collections of ideas like your first album?

JW: I like working in the way we have for The War Room and The Race For Space. I think it leads to a more coherent and cohesive album or release and helps give it more of its own story. I have an idea for what’s coming next, but just as with this album, which we knew about and were working on for 2 years before we told people what we were up to, it’ll stay pretty close to our chest until we’re ready to talk about it.

AP: Was it really you two dancing in the “Gagarin” video? Those were some pretty great moves!

JW: We’ve signed a confidentiality agreement about it so, sadly, we can’t talk about it. If we did, we’d have to sue ourselves. All I’ll say is that we like to leave a lot to the imagination in what we do, and this is no exception.

AP: Given how your music revolves around samples mixed with instrumentation, was it difficult to transition into a live show?

JW: Technologically it was and is a challenge, yes, and required a fair amount of practice too (and no small amount of swearing). I think we’ve found a good balance though now between a musically engaging and visually involving live show. We’ve managed to get a reputation as a good live act, which is very satisfying.

AP: Can we expect your whole visual integration from this live tour? I’ve heard previous US shows haven’t taken advantage of your full visual setup.

JW: Sadly not. We’re playing on pretty small stages here that don’t have room for 2 x 8ft televisions, 3 more stacks of 7ft ones, an antenna and a motorised, rising LED Sputnik! But the show scales pretty well both up and down and what you lose in scale you make up for in intimacy, so it’s still very much worth catching us. We’ll be using mostly in-house projection facilities for this run of dates.

AP: How has touring the US differed from the UK?

JW: It’s a lot bigger, and quite a lot unhealthier, too. Otherwise the reaction has been broadly the same. The challenge is always just getting in front of people, because experience has shown us that if we get in front of enough people, we will get a good response from some of them and it will work.

AP: What’s next for Public Service Broadcasting?

JW: A lot of touring. I mean, a lot. And after that, maybe a brief rest. And then—onwards.

Public Service Broadcasting hit Great Scott tomorrow night, 4/8, with Kauf. Tickets are available for $10 here.