1 intro / magnetic tales
2 the be colony
3 how do you get along sir
4 will you read me
5 reception / group therapy
6 a quiet moment
7 i see, so i see so
8 you must wake
9 one million years ago
10 a seancing song
11 oh you chatterbox
12 drug party
13 libra, the mirror's minor self
14 love's long listen-in
15 we are after all here
16 a medium’s high
17 ritual / looking in
18 make my sleep his song
19 royal chant
20 what i saw
21 let it begin / oh joy
22 round and round and round
23 the be colony / dashing home / what on earth took you
Musician, graphic designer and Ghost Box Records co-founder Julian House (artist behind the Focus Group) had collaborated previously on artwork and packaging by British indie electronic group Broadcast. Their shared sources of inspiration—1960s BBC soundtrack music, pulp science fiction, Europop, occult texts and jazz—led to this, their first album-length musical collaboration.
Rookie wrote that "the vast array of chopped and screwed samples–drawn from horror movies, nursery rhymes, and something that sounds like a long lost mantra-like ritual from some faraway place a hundred years ago–create a dynamic, haunting, but still pleasant mood, which is what makes it so thrilling". Vice assessed Witch Cults as "perhaps Broadcast's finest achievement, with intimations of Pink Floyd circa Piper at The Gates Of Dawn, as well as the horror film The Innocents and a whole, macabre toybox of colourful, arcane devices". PopMatters described their work as a unique postmodern approach which "seeks not show the world as it is, as a series of meaningless symbols, but to instead imagine a world that either never was or one that bubbles just a thin layer beyond perception".
BBC Music Review reviewed the album favorably, stating, "Witch Cults of the Radio Age is laced with enough wonder and intrigue to keep you coming back. It doesn't make perfect sense, but the sense of mystery is a key in itself". Drowned in Sound called the album "chaotic, overstimulating, like opening a dusty wardrobe and having an entire childhood tumble down on your head". From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_and_The_Focus_Group_Investigate_Witch_Cults_of_the_Radio_Age
