Broadcast’s fractured, fairy-tale music always sounds disembodied. It’s as if the music doesn’t emanate from the band’s five members but from an old-time record player hand-cranked by some freak straight out of David Lynch’s noggin. Work and Non Work collects all Broadcast’s transmissions to date, and it’s not surprising that six of the tracks were released on Stereolab’s Duophonic Super 45s. Much of Work and Nonwork recalls a Stereolab with its ’60s bubble-gum sensibilities slightly muted, especially on “The Book Lovers” and “Message From Home,” both loose mixes of the ‘lab and the Zombies. But other tracks, like “The World Backwards” and “Lights Out,” only hint at the writing and singing styles of Gane/Sadier, and some songs leave them behind altogether: If Renaissance musicians had had samplers they might have produced tracks like “Phantom” and “Accidentals.” In its native U.K., Broadcast is signed to Warp, the label that gave the world the word “electronica.” And while Broadcast isn’t jungle, techno, or triphop, the group does integrate computer trickery into its traditional song structures, helping to create another, yet untitled, electronic-music subgenre. (Suggestions for a snappy name that can be quickly used and abused should be sent to NME.)

—Christopher Porter