By the time I get finished listening to Boy Is Fiction's latest offering I am emotionally drained and at the same time oddly invigorated and very ready to listen again. Broadcasts In Colour pulls off the stunning trick of being able to draw out all the toxins in your soul with a heart-wrenching depth of emotion while keeping you moving with punchy EDM beats. Alex Gillet, the man behind the Boy, eases into the disk with the sitting-in-a-dark-room sigh of "In," then drops the beats for the start of "As Far From Here As Possible," and the disk is on its way. Between these two tracks, you come to understand the overall structure here: melancholic piano writing its sad story under trippy rhythms and glitchy soundbites. Gillet's vocal wash through several tracks, ghostly enough as to not be in the way. The highlight track for me is "Feeling Lazy," quite possibly the most heartbreakingly lovely song ever written about the worry of having a substance-abuse relapse. (If I'm interpreting the lyrics correctly.) I also like the glitch-and-wash structure of "Your Name is On My Skin." And I crank up the volume for the closer, "For My Friend." Gillet drives this one right into you with the slow piano suddenly exploding into a frantic burst of drums before backing away. There's a certain sameness of sound to many of the tracks here, but chalk it up to a "signature" feel. It doesn't interfere, especially when Broadcasts... is part of a shuffle. In my opinion Boy Is Fiction deserves to catch a little airplay on commercial radio. If the airwaves can popularize the more sugary work of, for example, Owl City, to whom you could likely draw a comparison if you had to explain Boy Is Fiction to someone, it's not a long jump to Gillet's smart soundcrafting with its mix of analog and digital elements, soul-felt songwriting and club-friendly beats. Broadcasts In Colour has been getting a lot of play here. Gillet's style keeps drawing me back for more. See if it does the same for you.

"Broadcasts in Colour is a far-reaching album that doesn’t fear taking steps in many directions on one album. Frantic beats and sweet melodies rest comfortably together while synths reminiscent of many ‘90s electro bands lay nicely in between more modern production styles....an album that knows how to touch the emotional center of the listener."

Three years after his debut album for Detritus's List Record, Boy Is Fiction is finally back with a second CD, this time for the young American label Sun Sea Sky. Things have changed a bit for this Australian musician, whose delicate and often glitchy electronica know incorporate a solid amount of vocals (distant and melancholic) and some more accoustic-sounding instrumentation. The whole thing stills sounds a bit like the grandson of Gridlock with a bit of City Centre thrown into the mix. Well thought and crafted, this is an album which will hopefully bring more recognition to an otherwise underrated artist.

Alex Gillett drops Broadcasts in Colour (Sun Sea Sky) which is his second album under the Boy If Fiction moniker. His debut was an extremely strong offering and to follow it with such ease is a feat unto itself. Gillett has dug deeper into what seems to be more effortless emotional territory for him. His sound has really never been too far from something that would not be out of place on our own n5MD imprint. Broadcasts in Colour lays comfortably between wide-screen ambient like Near The Parenthesis, the more apposing post-industrial style IDM that Gridlock pioneered in the 90s and Speedy J 'A Shocking Hobby' era syncopated beat throb.