Public Service Broadcasting have made waves with their new album, Every Valley.
The album is definitely not your typical adolescent trope on the vicissitudes of
love and loss. Deeply empowering and phenomenally rich in storytelling, the band
made its sophomore release a story about miners – specifically, miners from
Wales.
Comprised of multi-instrumentalists J Willgoose Esq, Wrigglesworth, and JF
Abraham, the band brings a curious mish-mash of genres — echoing the stylistic
power of post-punk, electronica, krautrock and punk rock — together to create an
intriguing narrative from start to end on Every Valley.
As if their musicality isn't enough to impress you, the story behind the
album is interesting – and we had the changes to speak to frontman Willgoose
(whom we will affectionately call J) about the bands thought process behind it,
as well as about the thrills and spills of touring.
Instrumentation was, of course, the first questions on your mind – the band
professes to have the trusty flugelhorn in their gear cabinets, among other
standard instruments like the keys, guitars, and drums.
“Our bass player is a classically trained trumpet player by trade and he
plays the flugelhorn as well," J shares, "and I think for him playing the bass
and playing the keys – those are the things that he picked up just for fun."
"I’m self-taught and from a very different way of writing and thinking
about music," J says. "The drummer, as well you know, he did a degree in drum
studies so he’s not really a kind of very accomplished drummer. He’s a
percussionist — he can play tuned percussion like the vibraphone on this album
or the glockenspiel. It just gives you more options to work with really.”