Public Service Broadcasting - Every Valley

Drowned In Sound 90

Public Service Broadcasting’s third album Every Valley takes Ebbw Vale as a microcosm; a case study that typifies and displays the consequences of the death of mining; it stretches that example out as a transparent telescopic layer through which it perhaps becomes easier to understand the results of inhumane policy when forced on working class people from a much broader range of geographical locations. Despite having recorded and premiered the album in Ebbw Vale itself, the album does indeed speak to broader subjects.

“Politics is life and everything to do with it affects you directly or indirectly” states an archival female voice on ‘They Gave Me A Lamp’, a music box swirl featuring Haiku Salut, which focuses on the importance of the role of women in communities like this - often something only truly highlighted or acknowledged when those communities begin to break down. An offer of empowerment comes at the song’s close with the direct, clear sample “I have never given in…and I’m very proud of it” speaks one woman against the backdrop of wailing, intense sound.

Songs like this lie at the heart of a record that would appear to be, quite frankly, bleak as fuck. Yet while our journey begins (yes, it’s a concept album so what would we expect?) with songs like ‘Every Valley’ with J Willgoose Esq. sampling the sonorous, rolling words of Richard Burton as he describes the status of miners in Wales (“They were the kings of the underworld” he intones); drenched in cruel irony and warped guitar wreckage; or the crazed, almost comical ‘People Will Always Need Coal’ which opens with an unbelievable sample from a ‘70s TV ad designed to attract miners and offers platitudes like “Young men are finding…a secure future in Welsh coal today” there is some light shining here.

Lead single ‘Progress’ which offers a sweet rush of tender pop from Camera Obscura vocalist Tracyanne Campbell, is anthemic while maintaining intellect and clever craft. A transcendent tune augmented by the clipped snatches of speech further impressing upon the listener the idea of a future for seemingly doomed communities. It at least offers melodic hope among the tragedy.

Later we receive the unbridled fury of ‘All Out’ - an indication that the strikes have begun, the present and future becoming more perilous by the day. Furious crowd sounds are set against shredding, swaggering guitar noise - “We’re not gonna take any more”. It’s moving, enraging and somehow liberating in the hands of Willgoose and Wrigglesworth. “I was brought up to respect police…I don’t respect them now” one voice offers before giving way to a crashing wave of furious guitar.

James Dean Bradfield lends his iconic tones and unmatched ear for emotive melody to Idris Davies’ poem ‘Gwalia Deserter’ on ‘Turn No More’ which offers a striking late-period Manics chorus while allowing PSB to maintain their musical identity through repeated building lines of instrumentation.

The record’s gentle centre sees Welsh language vocalist Lisa Jen Brown of 9Bach deliver a glorious, dreaming duet with Willgoose himself on ‘You Me’ - the first time his voice has appeared on record; it’s a tremulous attempt, unsure but tender and ripe with genuine feeling. The song is a respite, a delight.

Towards the close of the tale we are thrust into the climactic, pure desperation of ‘Mother of the Village’. “We all thought we would be there for the rest of our lives. But of course it didn’t turn out like that”; “Nothing will ever replace it”; “You understand what they mean by the death of a village”.

The album closes gorgeously with the Beaufort Male Choir performing mining song ‘Take Me Home’ in a way that moves and prickles the skin, a hand placed on the heart, evoking “hiraeth” to an almost impossible degree. “Take me home, let me sing again” - the unified voices soar, another element of hope against the oppression and depression.

Every Valley is certainly an important and timely record, but happily it's also an extremely satisfying and moving one. While it may not have the obvious scope of their breakthrough record The Race for Space it has something important to tell us about the times we live in and the hard, heartbreaking lessons we should all be learning from the past.

The Guardian 80

(PIAS)

By their own admission, as “middle-class Londoners”, Public Service Broadcasting aren’t obvious candidates to musically chronicle the rise and destruction of the Welsh coalmining industry. However, they have put a shift in: relocating to Ebbw Vale, conducting painstaking research and recording former miners’ testimonies to set to music along with select historical narratives. Richard Burton powerfully describes “the arrogant strut of the lords of the coalface” and a 1970s television advert cheerily urges viewers: “Come on, be a miner! There’s money and security!” There is no mention of the Aberfan disaster, Margaret Thatcher or Arthur Scargill, meaning that the political context is implied and the focus remains on the job and the communities. The Beaufort male choir are in fine voice on Take Me Home. Elsewhere, vocals from Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield and Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell glide over quivering strings, brass and Mogwai-like guitars, as the music beautifully captures a sense of awesome industrial power and a crushing sense of loss.

The Guardian 60

(Play It Again Sam)

The miners’ strike still looms large in the imagination more than 30 years after the NUM’s defeat. On their third album, Public Service Broadcasting focus on the impact of the conflict in south Wales, using spoken-word snippets from the past to enliven their pliant post-rock. It’s an approach the group have used before, notably on their second set, The Race for Space, and Every Valley doesn’t add much that is new. Still, the album’s standout, the rousing title track, employs Richard Burton’s voice to fine effect, while songs such as The Pit and They Gave Me a Lamp deftly mourn the demise of a community and stress the high regard in which miners were once held.