Hearts and Minds

At the height of the 1984-5 action against the government’s programme of mass pit closures, I went to a benefit gig for the striking miners. Industrial punks Test Dept and the South Wales Striking Miners’ Choir performed at a packed-out Deptford Albany on an evening that was such a contrast of styles that it had no right to work; but it did. While Test Dept literally hammered out their heavy metal percussion, the male voice choir produced such stirring harmonies that it was one of the most moving and emotional gigs I have ever witnessed.

Public Service Broadcasting’s gig at the De La Warr Pavilion last night occupied some of the same territory. Where there was a powerful sense of defiance at that benefit over thirty years ago, PSB seek to celebrate the heroism and nobility of the South Wales miners on their recent album, Every Valley; and while the music and sampled voices on the album are incredibly moving, the visuals of the live experience are inspiring. From the two pithead wheels that flank the stage and the glow of Davy lamps hanging above it, to the film footage streaming on the backdrop and screens, there is almost too much for the eye to take in.

As the title of their debut album says, PSB are on a mission to Inform-Educate-Entertain and the opening two numbers, Every Valley and The Pit, with their accompanying public information film samples, do just that. Other songs win our hearts as well as our minds: Go To The Road has snippets of trouble ahead with its “united we stand, united we bloody fall” and “the way it’s going now we’ll be chucked on the scrapheap” samples; They Gave Me A Lamp, with its title taken from Phyliss Jones’ memoir of her time as a colliery nurse, gives voice to the role of women in mining; and the aggressive guitar-led All Out provokes memories of the 1984 strike with images of Thatcher’s mobilised national police force charging picket lines.

Popular songs from the previous two albums are also played. Night Mail and Spitfire (“this is a song about a plane”) from their debut, and Go! and the much called-for Gagarin from 2015’s The Race for Space. Despite their computer nerd image, the music is less synthesised than I had imagined from listening to the album: Wrigglesworth’s drums and J F Abraham’s bass drive the numbers along, while band leader, J. Willgoose, Esq. provides the overlaying guitar and keyboard motifs. With the addition of a trio of brass, it is an uplifting, and at times, almost funky sound.