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Feb 02, 2023 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Zoe Prinds Flash

Andrew Broder is likely best known as the producer and musician behind the prolific ambient project, Fog. Since earning a cult following with over a dozen records as Fog, he has been staying very busy with his own solo career and his work as a producer, contributing to records from a range of artists including Jenny Lewis, Bon Iver, Armand Hammer, and Denzel Curry. He has also ventured into film scores, contributing the soundtrack for The Show, a fantasy noir film written by Alan Moore.

Tomorrow, Broder is back with The Show Original Soundtrack, a new solo album inspired by his work with Alan Moore. The record falls into both the atmospheric and danceable sides of Broder’s work, pulling apart his score for the film and reshaping the tracks into a standalone project, featuring collaborations with serpentwithfeet, Moor Mother, and Billy Woods.

Broder has been teasing the record with a series of singles since last year, and today he’s back with one final track, “Personal Effects,” premiering with Under the Radar.

With “Personal Effects,” Broder fuses the record’s dark club beats and layered ambient passages together, conjuring a piece that feels dreamy, expansive, propulsive, and sinister all at once. The track begins in a cinematic mode, with nocturnal drones steadily giving way to celestial synths. Amidst the track’s atmospheric layers, these synths feel like stars in a night sky, tinging the black ambient drones with bursts of white light. Meanwhile, thrumming electronic rhythms slowly join the track, beginning as a steady pulse but eventually turning dark and insular as they drive the record relentlessly towards its end.

Check out the song below. The Show Original Soundtrack is out 2/3 via Lex Records. You can also read our brief Q&A with Broder on the album and track here

This holistic LP came to be as a result of your collaboration with Alan Moore on the score for his film, The Show. Working from those original compositions, how did you conceptualize what you wanted The Show Original Soundtrack to be? And how did those ideas morph as you worked on it?

I treated it like remixing, or maybe reclaiming my own work - the music for Alan’s film was one thing, but I wanted to hear something else that felt a little more spiritually aligned with my musical identity, while still running with some of the themes that Alan touches on in his writing. So I found a way to synthesize some of the dark, droney melodic content from the score and make it a little more bangin, basically. Like have it move at its own speed, away from the pace of the film itself. Its own film.

This record also features a slew of amazing featuring artists — how did those come about?

Some are friends, some are new friends and some came through Lex. I am really honored that everyone said yes who appears on the record, it’s really flattering. I have been making music for a long time, I love collaborating now more than ever, so this record was a chance to expand my world a little bit and a good way for me to continue this process of shape-shifting again, into a producer role rather than as the primary artist. I am loving it.

How would you describe “Personal Effects” on a sonic level? And what makes this track stick out from, and fit in with the rest of the record?

Like you’re dead, then you come back to life, then you’re getting chased. The record is pretty wide ranging but I think this one is prettier than some of the other tunes.