In their journey from hooky psychedelic indie pop to the outer reaches of analogue electronic experimentation, Broadcast always had a rare sense of the melodic uncanny. They played at the edge between deep, instinctive-from-birth curiosity and the weight of history and learned experience, where they longed not merely for a specific lost moment in time but the possibility that it not only hadn’t vanished, but had always been here. If the first collection of early-draft recordings released as Spell Blanket: Collected Demos 2006-2009 hinted at a map of where Broadcast seemed to be going before singer and co-songwriter Trish Keenan passed in 2011, Distant Call: Collected Demos 2000-2006 is a sketchbook — better yet, a storyboard — of how she and co-founding member James Cargill arrived at the creative destination that inspired those future routes in the first place. Unlike the later Spell Blanket material, Distant Call offers early acoustic versions of songs listeners initially grew to love when they heard their final versions some 20 years ago. The wire-blooded analog-synthpop of their later work isn’t as widely represented as the primordial-electronic vision of psychedelia that drove their first two albums; only “Tears in the Typing Pool” is well-known among the circa-‘05 material, with most of the other songs dating back to 2003’s Tender Buttons if not earlier (i.e. the Noise Made By People-era 2000 Extended Play b-side “Where Youth and Laughter Go”). But the creative aesthetic shifts they exhibited from Tender Buttons onwards aren’t the point here — there are no vintage BBC Radiophonic effects, no swirling reverb, no thrumming cavernous backbeat. With just Keenan’s voice and guitar, the bare framework of Broadcast’s songs is left to fend for itself — and it thrives. Even considering how many of these tapes were strictly for personal reference, full of unguarded moments of not-quite-there-yet vocal takes and literal throat-clearing, they’re fascinating listens, filled with a potential that no amount of mic-peaking, lo-fi hiss can obscure. The force of the melodies Keenan builds around are emphasized to be distinctly memorable from the start, infused with a characteristically simultaneous sense of wonder, dread, hope, and openness to transformation that comes from Broadcast’s idea of exploring the fantastical and unknown. The demo of “Ominous Cloud” still captures all of those feelings brilliantly, even with a multi-tracked vocal its only concession to finished-product aspirations. But you also get to hear these familiar songs from very different starting points. “Valerie,” a fan favorite inspired by the 1970 Czech surrealist fairy-tale film Valerie and her Week of Wonders, is worth noting for the more dream-centered imagery of its early, alternate lyrics. “The Little Bell” and “Pendulum” bear even less resemblance to their Haha Sound counterparts — Keenan’s strumming underpins an entirely different sense of rhythm — but that just brings out the more weightlessly agile qualities of Keenan’s voice, emphasizing the beautifully morose qualities that provide Broadcast’s purest joys. None of these songs could possibly be the definitive version, yet they help define this much-loved creative force all the same.