“Mr Groves is a Wiltshire gentleman, who purchased ten thousand of these almost worthless acres a few years since, and is making a paradise of the wilderness…” – Benjamin Malkin, 1803*
The Gentle Good‘s ‘Ten Thousand Acres’ , a God Is In The TV Track of the Week last month opens the forthcoming album Elan (pronounced EL as in ELf and AN as in Ant) and is a sonic representation of the landscape of Cwm Elan (Elan Valley).
We are delighted to premiere the video for the song today.
‘The lyrics are inspired by the quote above,’ says Gareth Bonello, ‘which describes the valley in 1803 as ‘worthless’ shortly after the purchase of a large part of the estate by the aristocrat Thomas Grove for a summer residence. The ownership and use of land over time is a recurring theme throughout the album,
since the whole valley was flooded at the start of the 20th century to create reservoirs for drinking water.’
‘The video was made over a couple of shoots with On Par productions, one in summer and one in the autumn. Myself and Ren and Toby from On Par spent a few days in the valley shooting the video on both film and digital. Ren deliberately scratched up some of the film before using it in post production to get that distinctive worn look. As is typical for the weather in Cwm Elan, it rained a lot. For the October shoot, Ren and I spent the whole day tramping about the rivers and mountains getting soaked in the pouring rain until the cameras packed in. The result is this moody, grainy and otherworldly film, which I really love. I’m massively grateful to Ren and Toby and the On Par crew for making such a good job of it.’
The new album Elan is out on 16 May 2025 via Bubblewrap Collective.
*Malkin, B.H., 1804. The Scenery, Antiquities, and Biography, of South
Wales: From Materials Collected During Two Excursions in the Year 1803. TN
Longman and O. Rees.
