Public Service Broadcasting announce new album The Last Flight

London-based band Public Service Broadcasting have announced their new album The Last Flight, due for release on October 4, as well as the lead-single ‘Electra’.

The UK conceptualists’ fifth record, The Last Flight is inspired by the final voyage of America’s pioneering female aviator Amelia Earhart, who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

In 1937, Earhart announced that she would circumnavigate the globe in her Lockheed Model 10-E Electra aircraft. She crossed the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, but disappeared near Howland Island in the central Pacific Ocean.

The Last Flight marks Public Service Broadcasting's first release since 2021’s Berlin-based concept album Bright Magic, which was rated a 7/10 by Hot Press, writing “much like Berlin itself, the album juxtaposes the old and new across its three distinctive segments.”

Listen to ‘Electra’ below:

Speaking of the album, the band’s J. Willgoose Esq. explained: “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,” he continued. “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.”

Find the full tracklist of The Last Flight below:

1. I Was Always Dreaming
2. Towards The Dawn
3. The Fun Of It [feat. Andreya Casablanca]
4. The South Atlantic [feat. This Is The Kit]
5. Electra
6. Arabian Flight
7. Monsoons
8. A Different Kind Of Love [feat. EERA]
9. Howland