page_title: Every Valley
section_title: Composition and themes
hierarchical_section_title: Every Valley / Composition and themes
caption_attribution_description: Teitl Cymraeg/Welsh title: Glofa Elliot, Elliot's Town, Cwm Rhymni, gyda Phillip's Town yn y pellter Nodyn/Note: Two boys looking down over Elliots Colliery. Cyfrwng/Medium: Negydd ffilm / Film negative Cyfeiriad/Reference: (gch02396) Rhif cofnod / Record no.: 3368313 Rhagor o wybodaeth am gasgliad Geoff Charles yn Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru More information about the Geoff Charles Collection at the National Library of Wales Mae ffotograffau Geoff Charles hefyd yn rhan o Broject Europeana Libraries Geoff Charles' photographs also form part of the Europeana Libraries Project
context_page_description: Every Valley is a studio album by British art rock band Public Service Broadcasting. The group's third original album, it is a concept album which focuses on a topic of modern history, much like the band's previous work. The album's story depicts the history of the mining industry in Wales, more specifically chronicling the rise and decline of the country's coal industry. The band's lead songwriter, J Willgoose, Esq., described the album's premise as an allegory for today's "abandoned and neglected communities across the western world", which have led to a "malignant, cynical and calculating brand of politics."
  Every Valley was recorded in situ in the former steelworks town of Ebbw Vale, in South Wales. The band made use of a defunct hall formerly used as a convention space by the town's local workers' institute for the album's recording. It also features guest appearances by Welsh musicians James Dean Bradfield and Lisa Jên Brown, Scottish singer Tracyanne Campbell and English band Haiku Salut, as well as the Beaufort Male Choir. The album was released by PIAS Recordings on 7 July 2017.
context_section_description: Every Valley has been described as "a story of industrial decline", by the band's lead writer J. Willgoose Esq. in a post on social media blog site Tumblr. The album begins in the "golden age" of the mining industry in Wales, and documents the industry's progress, decline, and its aftermath, with the nationwide miners' strike playing a crucial role in the album's story. While Willgoose and his family has no involvement in Wales' mining industry, he cited "the romanticism of the valleys and their geography", and his interest in the country's history with mining, as inspirations for the creation of Every Valley. Contemporary political themes were also a driver for the album's development, with Willgoose stating that the decline of the Welsh mining industry was "a story reflected in abandoned and neglected communities across the western world, and one which has led to the resurgence of a particularly malignant, cynical and calculating brand of politics."
  "Progress", the fourth track on Every Valley, was inspired by the sound of Kraftwerk, with its bass line and use of a vocoder drawing parallels to the tropes of the German electronic group. The song, which appeared on a single prior to the release of the album, was intended by Willgoose as a message that "progress will win in the end", using samples of 1950s documentaries on the progress of technology in the mining industry, and a chorus stating "I believe in progress". Willgoose also affirmed that the song continued the band's motto of "celebrating human achievements, innovation and resilience, even in the face of overwhelming odds", combating his fear that people thought of his band as purely nostalgia-based. He also affirmed that "Progress" is "an attempt to state that more explicitly, especially at a time when certain regressive elements seem determined to take us back to some non-existent, halcyon 1950s era."
caption: A 1951 view of Elliots Colliery, located in Rhymney Valley, one of many 20th century coal mines in the South Wales Coalfield.
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