MUSIC: Every Valley by Public Service Broadcasting

The fantastic Public Service Broadcasting have a new album out! They are best known for the 2015 album The Race For Space all about the Russia and USA Space Race. Their music samples old public information films over guitar-slathered electronica. New album Every Valley is a chronicle of the rise and destruction of the Welsh coalmining industry.  The band recorded interviews with old miners through the NUM in Pontypridd and pored over mountains of audio and film at the South Wales Miners’ Library at Swansea University. The London band relocated to Ebbw Vale (not far from where I originally come from) recording in the Ebbw Vale Institute, which stands in one the most deprived areas in the country.

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Cardiff in 1965 for rugby.

The opening track on the album features the voice of possibly the most famous Welshman of all, Richard Burton, describing "The arrogant strut of the lords of the coalface, looking at the posh people with hostile eyes.”

The song Turn No More features vocals from James Dean Bradfield of Welsh band Manic Street Preachers as well as a Welsh language song performed by Lisa Jên Brown called You + Me. The record ends with the help of a Welsh male voice choir. Fantastic stuff! Listen now on Apple Music and read a Guardian review here

They Gave Me A Lamp by Public service Broadcasting