PJ Harvey : Classic or Dud

As for the other albums, I prefer "To Bring You My Love" to "Dry", "Dry" to "Rid of Me".

But I do like the new single 'Place Called Home'. A blantantly pop single, but you gotta love it.

However, I saw her perform You Said Something on David Letterman show, and I have to say that that particular performance was one of the best television experiences I've had in my life. If you have a Harvey fan for a friend, ask them if they taped it and go see it with them. Truly trancendent.

Love, Jeff

"Uh Huh Her." Thoughts on the new PJ Harvey?

...to keep us going for a while.

However, talking about her as a whole -- I'm going through a relisten of everything building up to the show on Tuesday (might even dig up all the B-sides if I can manage it), and that meant Dry earlier (good songs, couple of great performances, strong without being compelling) and Rid of Me now (holy fuck what a great album -- what a *GREAT* album).

It seems to me that she's very easily slipped over the line that separates initially promising start to ever more unique figure to finally someone with an actual continuing career well over a decade while still remaining interesting, to me at least. And all on the same label still, eight albums on (allowing for the fact that Dry got picked up by Island here and counting the Parish collaboration). Not bad, more thoughts later...

S

"Sheela-na-gig" has been on repeat for several days now in Winamp.

been with her stuff since 'sheela'

live performances in the past have been disappointing against the records *but* a recent live encounter proved her at the at the absolute apex top of her game. great tunes/performance/band the whole thing.

catch while you can...

Dance Hall is indeed a very good album as you said over on the monster thread, but I think it's very subtle and requires a lot of relistening -- it's about the only album that the cover of "Is That All There Is?" aside I can't immediately recall a full song from it, even though I've heard it a lot. Hrm.

(if I were the "heckling type", which is not necessarily the case)

Hey, you better not. ;-)

Seeing her tonight, rah! Hm. Wonder if she'll mention Peel.

I say classic, if only for Rid Of Me (which I only own on tape and never can listen to for this reason, really really REALLY need to get it on CD), To Bring You My Love, and Uh Huh Her. Everything else is pretty good (Dry) to crap (Dance Hall).

I wonder if she'll play the same set. If I weren't packing boxes I'd go again.

I'd imagine he was himself.

(Are you going to be at EJL's party on Saturday? If not, I will pout.)

Pitchfork: Some people talk about songwriting like a trade, and for other artists it seems more muse-driven, more fickle, more spontaneous. Do you ever get writers' block?

Harvey: I've never thought of it as writers' block, but I definitely have periods of greater or lesser activity. I think that's pretty natural. The key is not to panic when you're in one of the troughs of creativity. Because that's so valuable, there's so much learning to be done in that. In the moment, I feel like I'm in that space. It's not resting, it's almost like treading water and gathering information and trusting that it will come around again, and it will. I see it on a greater scale with projects, really. I can see, over the eight or so albums that I've done, some of them reach great peaks of creativity, where everything lines up and works well, but then you go through lesser phases, and then it will happen again. I think that's completely natural. Sometimes you see artists burning very brightly, and they'll have three or four projects in a row that are absolutely incredible. But I think it's very hard for anyone to sustain that time after time after time. Some people do, but they burn out quite quickly. Or they die or something. (laughs) But in lots of artists that I admire, I see the peaks and troughs that (they) move through.

from the Pitchfork interview today.

and all of a sudden, i'm really curious which albums PJ considers to be her peaks and troughs. what do you guys think? does she agree with consensus on her work, or does she love the stuff that's not as universally loved?

she talks later in the interview about burning out on touring "a few years ago" during the Uh Huh Her tours with the full band. does she see Uh Huh Her as a lesser album, due to burning out on playing the songs live, "losing the edge" as she puts it?

I've read that she considers Is This Desire? to be her best.

oh awesome! i don't know about "best" but it's certainly my favorite, and probably the most similar to White Chalk mood-wise. gawwwwd it's underrated in her discography.

i think at one point -- senior year of high school? -- i called Is This Desire? my favorite album of all time.

I think a lot of critics underrated it because it was the follow-up to To Bring You My Love, which was at the top of so many year-end lists in 1995 -- but I agree with you, I think it's great. Maybe not my favorite, but I like it better than TBYML, at any rate.

what's yr favorite?

These days it's probably Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, although it used to be 4-Track Demos.

i like both of those very much

one of those artists where i can see any album argued (legitimately) as her best. with maybe 1 exception in a 7-8 album career. now *that* is fuckin consistent.

Only today, after about a dozen listens, did I discover that the vinyl version of White Chalk is supposed to be played at 45 rather than 33 EVEN IF IT DOES NOT SAY SO ANYWHERE ON THE FUCKING LABEL.

It sounded pretty cool at 33 though, maybe better.

I'm listening to 'White Chalk' just now. Silence is definitely perhaps the best. Most of the album got a bad reception live however. Mostly piano

I've read that she considers Is This Desire? to be her best.

-- jaymc, Monday, 5 November 2007 16:36 (2 hours ago) Link

And she's right, of course. :-)

does she see Uh Huh Her as a lesser album, due to burning out on playing the songs live, "losing the edge" as she puts it?

I really went off her around then - the touring band were a bunch of session muso muppets (apart from Rob Ellis), while the album did not seem to have anything interesting on it. I might go back to it some time, but it has kind of killed my interest in acquiring more PJH product. which is sad, for me anyway, as I really really loved her stuff for quite some time.

Anyone ever heard her cover of Dylan's "Shot of Love?" It's marvelous, a paranoid rant with a slight delay on the vocals, really powerful, on a collection of b-sides.

hahaha at ned image bomb upthread

Dry is a fucking awesome record. The playing and recording is amazing. How is it a debut? What a voice, what guitars, what songs. She's never made a bad record, I don't think, although some are, obviously, better than others. Peaks = Dry, Rid Of Me, TBYMY, and, in songwriting terms, SFTCSFTS (not keen on the production here, though). Dance Hall At Louse Point confuses me. I think I like it a lot.

Classic then dud. Rid of Me is amazing and some of the sessions from around that time are fantastic too. Then she went boring. Dance Hall At Louse Point also v good.

i was just thinking of the development from "dry" to "white chalk". whereas "dry" was a record boasting of energy and power of an extrovert, innocent person "white chalk" sounds like the album of someone who has been beaten, someone who is depressed and tormented, someone who has had a life behind him. those two are so totally opposite in mood, it is stunning. actually i am not sure which one i prefer. but "white chalk" was definitely my favourite album from last year.

interesting point, alex. i just wish she didn't sound so emotionally restrained/stilted on White Chalk; the few live versions of those songs i've seen on youtube and such blow the album versions away in every conceivable sense (ok, they're not as spooky as the official versions, but so what? trading emotional depth and power for mere spookiness was a serious mistake on her part, imho, obviously.). actually, if she were to release a live version of that album--with more or less full band accompaniment, i would hope--it would probably be one of my faves too.

I certainly don't hear White Chalk as stilted, it's actually one of the most intense albums I've heard for years. Deep and spooky don't seem incompatible, especially not for PJ. Still, I'm sure there must be quite a few full length live recordings floating around out there, if you dig for them. I'll check out the youtube stuff in the meanwhile.

me too i don't hear "white chalk" as stilted at all. "dry" may be much more artificial if you consider her as not the typical rock chick. wasn't she striking a pose on "dry"? i don't think she is this kind of man-eating femme fatale. but i am curious concerning "white chalk" live. i once went to munich about 400 km from where i live to see giant sand. they were great but she totally blew them away. what a stage presence!

well, i don't think she's some kinda victorian-era ghost either.

ok, maybe mannered would've been a more appropriate adjective to use there. also, i do mean in comparrison with her earlier/live work, obviously; i'm not saying she's suddenly gone Kraftwer or some such.

Her collaborations with Josh Homme a few years back misled me to believe she was ready to rock again. Please Polly please, it's been eight years. Enough with the chamber music!

Uh Huh Her is hardly chamber music?

yes!!!

xp

just saw her performance on morning becomes eclectic end of last year. pretty good. she is on her own, playing all instruments, mainly piano, herself. the interview is enlightening. the three albums she is happy with are "to bring you my love", "is this desire?" and the new one. she comes over extremely honest and likeable. she does not want to repeat herself, probably one reason why her albums take time to get done. she also said that she didn't find the current music, art, film etc. scene very interesting. she hadn't been enthralled by new music for quite a while. i know exactly what she means. there has been hardly anything exciting the last 5 years. the last album i liked was hers and it wasn't even so extraordinary!

well, yeah, if you're talking about Rock, i agree completely; i can't even remember the last rock record that i was even mildly excited by. oh, wait, it was the Mastodon album, i guess. that's what, two years ago or so. luckily, there is other stuff out there ya know.

other stuff like what? electronic music? techno? rap? i doubt i'd like any stuff in one of those three genres. except electronic maybe. if it is interesting like boards of canada were.

i go mainly for older stuff myself, especially jazz. there's an entire universe of good stuff to fall into right there. also, there's all kinds of fun and interesting sounds and approaches to music to be discovered in various world music genres. man, that stuff alone can keep you occupied for a lifetime.

No, Uh Huh Her is not chamber music. But it doesn't rock either. I love Harvey, but she's lost the plot if she thinks there's no good music.

It's odd that one would be an ILM regular and not be excited about music. Why be here otherwise?

not terribly excited about new Rock music, actually. luckily, there's a whole world of other sounds out there to get lost in. and, of course, there's always older things you've never heard. i mean, nobody's heard everything.

but "white chalk" was definitely my favourite album from last year.

Yes! The more I revisit last year's batch of albums, the more I'm convinced this one (of those that made my top ten or so) holds up the best.

I heart most of her albums, but I wish she'd record an LP's worth of songs that sound like "Big Exit." I luuuuuuuuurrrve everything about that song.

It's odd that one would be an ILM regular and not be excited about music. Why be here otherwise?

First became aware of her after this catching this on the telly 5000 years ago. I remember this performance did strange new things to the young 11 year old me. Although now to my ears it plays like the game on 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue' where the contestants have to sing unusual covers in the style of a distinctive singer.

I think I've long since unofficially filed The Peej in the 'Stuff I Listened To Fairly Constantly In High School But Would Only Play Now Whilst Having A Personal Nostalgia-fest' segment of my brain, where she bears the unusual distinction of actually being any good.

New York Daily News:

P.J. Harvey hits Broadway with 'Hedda Gabler' score
Friday, January 23rd 2009, 4:00 AM

P.J. Harvey knows the score on Broadway's 'Hedda Gabler.'

They’re both bold women — one wildly creative, the other bitterly violent.
Rock star P.J. Harvey and dramatic character Hedda Gabler share a keen interest in shaking things up, even if the former does so in an infinitely more appealing way than the latter.

“The character of Hedda is fascinating and horrifying at the same time,” Harvey says. “As an artist, I’ve always been drawn to what human beings are capable of, in how far you can push things. And Hedda pushes things to the limit.”

Small wonder, then, that Harvey leapt at the chance to provide the disruptive music that adds spookiness to the new production of Henrik Ibsen’s classic ode to the ultimate psycho bitch from hell. Starring the ideally “off” Mary-Louise Parker, this production of “Hedda Gabler” opens Sunday at the American Airlines Theater.

For fans of Harvey’s restless muse, the play provides an ideal extension of her brand. Though her eight albums show a flair for setting scenes evocative enough for theater or movie scores, Harvey had never worked in either medium. “I’ve wanted to do theater or film music since I first began writing music,” the artist says. “I’ve just never been approached before.”

Her break came from director Ian Rick-son. Harvey met him five years ago when he was running London’s Royal Court Theater. “He gave me pointers of the kind of music he was looking for,” Harvey says. “I did whatever I felt I needed to do for his vision.”

The score — which takes up the first two minutes of the play, then creepy-crawls around the starts and finishes of all four acts — centers on a hiss, a compressed signal of menace and torment. It’s the sound of seething. “I just kept coming back to that sound,” Harvey says.

To achieve it, she “mashed up guitar feedback and played it at the wrong speed.” The music also features melodic piano interludes, though Harvey says she “under-cut that with something wrong in the lower end, something destabilizing. It sounds like radio static, or like things breaking down.”

It’s the perfect tone for a play centered on a character whose hatred of marital conventions, and fear of her own feelings, has made her quickly run off the rails. If the result reads as extreme now, imagine how it went down when Ibsen first presented it in 1889. “In the context of the time, this was utter-ly unheard of,” Harvey says.

That, of course, turned her on. The chill of the music bears a relation to Harvey’s last CD, 2007’s “White Chalk,” which presented a kind of psychosexual dreamscape. Harvey’s next album, arriving in spring, will pair her again with old collaborator John Parish. She’ll tour in May.

In the meantime, Harvey has lots of other ambitions. The woman who previously wrote music for dance also paints, sculpts and writes poetry. She has been drawing so much of late that she hopes to have an exhibition of her work. And that’s not all. “I’d like to do some comedy work,” says Harvey, who rarely cracks a smile in public. “I’d love to do a show with a standup comic and music.”

“I’m not sure how that would work,” she admits. “But there must be a way.”

Don’t bet against her.

>>>The woman who previously wrote music for dance also paints, sculpts and writes poetry. She has been drawing so much of late that she hopes to have an exhibition >>>of her work. And that’s not all. “I’d like to do some comedy work,” says Harvey, who rarely cracks a smile in public. “I’d love to do a show with a standup comic >>>and music.”

YAWN. That said Uh Huh Her wasn't bad.

I don't think Uh Huh Her was anything to write home about.

I saw her live with John Parish last week. There were definitely superb highlights but plenty of moments of boredom as well. I think most folks would have preferred that she do more from her career than just stuff from the two albums she did with him. I'd prefer it if she were a little crazier a little more often. She's just so much more powerful when she's all in-your-face rather than taking the quieter route. Leave the quieter route to Radiohead, methinks.

Also she wore the same black dress and bare feet that she had on that TV performance on the thread for the new album.

She's got to be 40, or very close to it, now; she can't keep screaming forever.

BUT SHE SHOULD.

Compare: live version of The Devil with the huge vocal arrangement vs. WATERED DOWN/SOFT SHITTY TREBBLY VERSION on the record.

That said, my favorite track on the recent album was the spoken word one.

"BUT SHE SHOULD." OTFM - I'm well over 40 and have no intention of stopping screaming.

Bimble, that must have seen an off night - saw her in Edinburgh, and she was utterly compelling. And I'm sure she was wearing an entirely different pair of feet

Yeah I feel a bit cheated, I must say, cause the outfit she's wearing in the picture in the new Mojo magazine of her performing with Parish is NOT the black dress...(not that it's that great of an outfit, but a change would be nice)

And yeah, hell fucking shit about getting old and slowing down. I won't hear of it. When that woman starts screaming & yelling about god only knows what...you sit the fuck up and take notice, right? Very few women in my humble opinion can really pull that kind of shit off the way she does (Kim Gordon can't hold a candle to her, as an example). She should use her bloody talent more.

Southall, I honestly like you for a lot of different reasons, but this post is freaking mad:

She's got to be 40, or very close to it, now; she can't keep screaming forever.

― Sickamous Mouthall (Scik Mouthy), Sunday, June 21, 2009 10:33 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

Dude I'm 38 and I'll take a frickin' microphone and shout in a punk band and break your personal eardrums for posting this kind of shit. Like I said, I like you Nick, for several reasons, but do give some thought before you post this kind of bullshit. Thanking U with utmost politeness.

Someone in the audience yelled at her, in a friendly way - "we thought you might play guitar!" She said "oh no, John Parish has guitar duties here..." Imagine how embarassing that must have been for him.

OMG this video is sex on wheels. I don't think she even looked like this when I saw her on the Rid of Me Tour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzwG3r9_L9o

There was a time around that album Rid of Me when I thought she and she alone could save me from having to do what I did. And as it turned out, she couldn't save me from it at all. I still feel sad about that. But also sortof numb too.

Dare I ask, what did you have to do...?

Change my gender?

Ah, see I really didn't know and was asking. I don't read EVERY thread here. ;-)

She's so much more powerful now singing John Parish's mediocre music.

Not meant as a slight, Stephen. Just a ginger tiptoe in the water of honesty?

Alfred OTM, LOL.

Oh shit. I can't breathe. Look at her hair, look at her earring, look at her outfit. Look at her unfashionable guitar. What in god's name is going on here? And can I play it again? And again?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzZxjbRua00

A friend just sent me this one, and I still can't breathe. Look at her dress!!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk_GmlJxJTg

I told him I think I'm gonna play that and only that all night. I'm possessed, I'm obsessed.

I thought she stopped screaming a long time ago?!? Or am I WRONG?

No, there's two tracks on the new album with John Parish where she does, yeah - "A Woman A Man Walked By" and "Pig Will Not". Haha, in fact the latter starts with her letting out a huge scream!

PJ Harvey Battle Royal! Entrances

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riBzl1_uJeI

Queen of Wrestling! Where do people find the time?
Thanks for that video, Brimble, it's delish.

PJ is classic from the word go. "Dry" is still completely relevant and is easily in my top albums for that decade. The raw sexuality of her earlier albums are as uniquely feminine as Kate Bush; PJ just presents her material with the guts and sputum of the grittier underbelly. Few, if any, Riot Grrrls can match the quality and variety in her catalog, to say nothing for that overpraised windbag, Ms. Phair.

Of late, I'm finding "White Chalk" returning to the player again and again. And while i do wish it was longer, have no trouble repeating it 2 or even 3 times -- which is as rarefied-an-act as there is in my listening conventions.

I swear that I recall a TV performance wear the stool-perched and biker leather-clad Ms. Harvey completely dismantled and episode of the Tonight Show with a redoubtable solo rendition of Highway 51 (or was it 50ft Queenie)? I also tend to want to believe that she appeared in 91/92 when Johnny Carson was still hosting, and her performance left him nearly slack-jawed as the audience mustered only a smattering of nervously polite applause. I've spent the better part of the last two hours Googling evidence of this performance but it appears to have never actually happen. Does this sound familiar to anybody?

People do speak highly of White Chalk, but I found the album before it a bit inessential and decided to give up on her.

However, it is nice to think of her as a majorly Beefheart-influenced artist on this special day.

"White Chalk" is the perfect example of an artist incredibly attuned to a specific instrument - in her case, a guitar - but choosing as her vehicle of choice an instrument she's not as fluent with - in this case, a piano. In fact, a lot of Polly Jean Harvey seems to be her intentionally shying away from the things that made/make her great. First she dissolved the incredible power trio. Then she largely put down the guitar. Then she started pairing up with one of the most technically adept producers of our time to make her recordings sound intentionally scruffy. Then she follows her glossiest album, which she subsequently dismisses, with her most DIY. Toss in a disc or two of songs written and played by Parish and her whole career seems like an effort to throw people off the trail. That's what makes her so vital, I guess.

her whole career seems like an effort to throw people off the trail

love this way of looking at it

though i'm still not into her latest :/

picked up 4 track demos on vinyl at a garage sale

she is amazing, what a talent, even in such a simple, raw form she's just jaw dropping, some of these versions are better i think

i like almost everything she's done (kinda couldn't get with stories from the city and uh huh her totally), but those first few PJ Harvey albums are all time stunners. pretty ferocious. question! i was listening to a bootleg from 93 recently and was wondering -- who's doing backup vocals? whoever it is, they're doing a damn good job of approximating pj's style.

It's the drummer.

he's impressively high pitched.

I remarked on the Let England Shake thread that while I stuck UHH in my top ten it sounds like a B-side comp now: the detritus of a phase she needed to collect and abandon.

4 Track Demos is great. the version of Rid Of Me on there will blow your hair back.

Those demos really underscore, along with the new Neil Young and, um, I guess Billy Bragg the strange power of the solo electric guitar.

hm, yeah, good point. is there a thread for solo electric guitar + voice records? probably not that many, really.

Royals

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3741/11308844674_c79a360068_z.jpg

Oh Lorde.

WHAT HAPPENED TO ENGLAND SHAKING

haa

haha, that is a cute picture.

Let England Curtsey

Let One of England's Monarchs Pin Something On My Blazer

5'4" Queenie.

goddamn right!

"I wouldn't do this for Mick Jagger, you know?"

Never really found her cute, before this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahLfsTQ18_o

God I was there, first time I've seen footage
(One and only acid trip)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8mqk9pIaHo

cool story bro

way to reduce one of rock's most interesting artists of the past three decades to her effect on your boner. well done. thanks a lot.

i just hope that he can eventually find a way to find the cuteness in other musicians too, before it's too late

Wow, all that just because he/she mentions PJ Harvey looks cute in yellow?

- revive a thread after nine months
- never mention her music or anything but attractiveness
- ah now she is worth discussing because i finally found her cute

so, yes

That's assuming her cuteness was the entire point of sharing. Could have just as well been a side note. Second video had no mention of cuteness.

Ship's computer: lock brain, please.

evan it's nice that you want to give this guy the benefit of the doubt but maybe giving the artist the benefit of thinking that she, you know, exists outside of what men think of her would be helpful too

i don't understand why 'don't be a sexist jerk' is such a hard thing for men to comprehend

Maybe we can talk about this (the music, that is), probably my favourite PJH youtube clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCruBKDt5Ys

This cuts to the bone and gives me chills every time I watch it. I love the crowd response in the last fifteen seconds of the song, they know they've seen something epic.

oh god enablers like evan are as bad as sexists like outdoorfish, what is wrong with you

Yeah, obviously I hate the music. I am also a fan of simpletons.

Enabler, facilitator or apologist?

enablers like me are just as bad as sexists, who we are totally 100% positive are sexists based on half sentences. how about let's not be horribly negative people and at least try to get a little tiny bit more information before we call everyone a fucking full blown sexist AND say that everyone who says "whoa, hold on a second" just as bad??

I get it, you really WANT to believe outdoorfish isn't a fan at all, but now he stumbles upon a clip of pj harvey in a yellow dress and checks his dick to see whether he should give her a chance.

maybe, this is crazy because I know his blood test came back sexist, but maybe he is just a fan of her music already and wanted to share a clip and add "she's particularly cute in this clip" and just chose poor wording. Is that possible? because it's worth getting a little more info before you call someone a sexist over admitting they hadn't found someone cute before. Plus, the next clip wasn't all "check out her titties in this one" it was "I was at this show!" I'm pretty sure that's enough to assume the entire reason for sharing was most likely not to talk about how attractive she is and how much more important that is than her great music

maybe he is just a fan of her music already and wanted to share a clip and add "she's particularly cute in this clip" and just chose poor wording

Uh...your putative alternate isn't much better?

You can't mention you find someone cute in any way?

No, we live in a world of unbridled hypocrisy.

You can't mention you find someone cute in any way?

― Evan,

- revive a thread after nine months
- never mention her music or anything but attractiveness
- ah now she is worth discussing because i finally found her cute

so, yes

― mookieproof,

No, we live in a world of unbridled hypocrisy and sheep-like behaviour.

- never mention her music or anything but attractiveness
- ah now she is worth discussing because i finally found her cute

Are we sure these two are exactly the case?

Such bold truths being told.

Exhibit A:
Kessler is hot and probably doesn't have the clap so there's that!

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 1 May 2014 19:31 (4 months ago) Permalink

Just trying to give the benefit of the doubt, that's all. I don't like to assume the worst in people without a certain amount of information.

behind everyone doing something sexist or racist or homophobic will always be some clichéd idiot saying "WAIT DON'T JUDGE THEM"

PJ's general appearance/demeanor isn't "cute". I'd describe her stage presence as compelling, commanding, mysterious. At least every time I've seen her. In this video, she looks cute. She's having fun, smiling. Like a young Linda Ronstadt almost.

God, I want that Firebird.

behind everyone doing something sexist or racist or homophobic will always be some clichéd idiot saying "WAIT DON'T JUDGE THEM"

― lex pretend, Thursday, September 18, 2014 8:32 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm an idiot? You're right, I should judge people when I have sufficient information. Let me try. You're an asshole.

Fun!

Behind every witch-hunt there's always some cliched idiot who rushed to condemn without sufficient evidence

Who is that Macklemore-looking dude playing bass and what's with that gold knob on the horn?

now that's a lead.

good fucking god, saying "judging a woman on whether she gives you a boner or not" is sexist does not amount to a bloody witch hunt, get over yourselves

Who is that Macklemore-looking dude playing bass

Simon 'Dingo' Archer; AFAIK she borrowed him from The Fall for the 2004 tour.

Cool! Thanks.

I miss her power trio.

Me too. I was at this show, right up in front; when this song kicked in, the crowd surged forward, and those of us up against the stage obviously had nowhere to go. I had bruises on my stomach for weeks afterward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cEw8nMfzI8

It was a good show, but at the time the band members seemed remote from one another. I later read that they'd decided to break up earlier in the tour, but stayed together to finish out the dates.

Bruises?! That's nuts!

Yeah, it was pretty scary, actually. After this song, a bunch of us in the front retreated to the back of the crowd and exchanged "Are you OK?"s. Lots of crowd-surfing at this show, too, which was really annoying.

Almost forgot to mention, Scrawl was one of the openers! They killed, but the crowd wasn't that into them for some reason.

Man, Scrawl ...

this thread is a fine example of What It Feels Like For A Woman Who Talks About Music Online, so thanks for that dudes

All I wanted to do was have you consider that outdoorfish was perhaps not evaluating PJ Harvey entirely on her looks based on that comment alone. I wasn't defending the general act of evaluating someone entirely on their looks, or based on what men think, or whatever else.

Jfc

oh evan. oh, oh, oh, evan.

*considers, rolls eyes, goes back to thinking about "To Bring You My Love" instead of this nonsense*

like... not to be all proprietary but the problem here is that the discussion of her looks was what LED the discussion, even though her MUSIC is, you know, next-level

i know that you probably have zero idea of what it means like to be a woman, so here's a thought experiment: imagine having every endeavor you do viewed through a prism of whether or not you are "cute" or "fuckable" or etc. that atmosphere is what makes 'well-meaning' comments like outdoorsfish's - especially when viewed in light of reams of galleries of female musicians that put their looks first, and thinkpieces that wax poetic on artists' 'sexiness' in such a way to make their music incidental and oh, so much more - utterly toxic and worthy of being called out, good intentions or no.

i mean ffs it's not like she doesn't explicitly reference this bullshit double standard in her work or anything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuJE40OBt48

"never really found her cute, before this..." is such a hideous, indefensible sentiment, even if evan is somehow tuned to the total cerebral network of outdoorfish

it's really all in the ellipses

I'm just overly optimistic about people. I was considering that it may have been poor wording. I get it.

I'm just overly optimistic about people. I was considering that it may have been poor wording. I get it.

― Evan, Thursday, September 18, 2014 10:31 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha fuck off and die

Sure!

it does make sense that the logical conclusion of pollyannaism is to render oneself utterly, wilfully blind to the structural inequalities and specific dickishness arising thereof in the world

I just needed a little more evidence. "Utterly, wilfully blind" is a bit of an exaggeration.

I know saying I'm overly optimistic sounds self congratulatory, I didn't mean it like that. Can we not ask someone to fuck off and die?

pretty please?

i didn't ask

oh it's that bit of the argument where the people objecting to misogyny etc are told off for being impolite

every. single. time

OK I'm not on the "advocating misogyny" side either. Thanks. I just don't like being told to fuck off and die. Not attempting to distract.

fuck off and die

you are worthless

matt, go enjoy a cup of chamomille tea or something.

cut it out already

yup always the people being "impolite" told to cut it out, yet i see none of evan's "cut it out"s aimed at the person being sexist

can't believe someone would object to being told to fuck off and die, every. single. time

I don't advocate sexism. I was just hoping outdoorfish didn't mean it that way.

You can "not mean" to be sexist and still be sexist. That's kind of why these inequalities are seen as structural.

not an attempt to stir, but I'm curious what people think about when and how it is/isn't appropriate to discuss pop stars physical appearance and desirability and how they shape the way you engage with them and how this relates to the gender of the pop star and the writer etc, it seems a big part of pop music/fandom, is there an ilx thread specifically about this it seems like something that must have happened over the last 14 years at some point, also it seems depressing that approx 30% of the P J Harvey thread is responding to this one post

well i wrote this primer two years ago, and am bummed that it needs revising to be more 'strident'
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2012/02/sexism_women_in_rock_female_musicians.php

seems to me like maura, mattress, etc are ganging up on evan for no reason. his offhand comment, which he admitted was just trying to give the OP the benefit of the doubt, doesn't warrant being told to "fuck off and die". ya'll are totally immature, and give women a terrible stigma. which i think you were trying to do the opposite of? so great job guys. maybe get back to talking about the thing this thread is actually about (MUSIC), and go let out your unhappiness on some other message board or gawker comment section.

so pleased we have juice box watching for women stigmatizing themselves

Here: thread to argue about whether sexism is inherent to the discussion of image/appearance/attractiveness of musicians

A new place to take this discussion.

i'm sorry, where did i say that i co-signed the 'fuck off and die' comment? i don't, and i think my comments on the thread bear it out.

Hope there's no hard feelings. maura isn't responsible for the fuck off and die sentiment.

I admit I blew up a little when I got lumped in as being "just as bad as sexists" but I take all that back. maura had good points.

clarification: i didnt mean to imply maura wanted evan to fuck off and die. just that she was one of the ones i saw most fueling the topic, sorry!

All the angry comments/rant that is. xpost

You can "not mean" to condone someone being told to fuck off and and still be a chimp flinging shit for social justice. That's kind of why these inequalities are seen as structural.

i am not sorry for being the only woman in a room of dudes and voicing my annoyance at hivemind tendencies, juicebox. not sorry at all.

lmaooooo bob six go sit down in the corner. 'a chimp flinging shit for social justice,' did you get that from gamergate? #notallmen

The last record of hers I absorbed was "To Bring you My Love", and haven't really had any awareness of her music for a decade or so... what might I want to hear of hers now?

Let England Shake

let england shake is really fantastic.

I love Let England Shake!

I like Stories From The City but I don't want lex to yell at me.

White Chalk doesn't get enough love. Probably my favorite of hers outside of the power-trio records (or at least neck-and-neck with Shake).

Thanks for the recs. I'll be heading in that direction shortly.

SFTC is my favorite PJ album, there's something really intense for me about the way her voice and persona scrape against the polished/more conventional tunes and arrangements. especially love 'good fortune.'

Crap, I used to own that album but haven't heard it in years. Did I forget to upload it? Anyway, I like that one, maybe not as much as To Bring You My Love, but I listened to it quite a bit when it came out. The harmonies on Beautiful Feeling are amazing.

Nevermind, I had it. pj harvey back catalog is hella on sale at itunes right now though.

Maura otm

By the way, PJ is set to start recording a new album in the new year, according to this: http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/news/40551/PJ-Harvey-plans-to-start-work-on-new-album-in-early-2015

is it just me or did Let England Shake get critically memory-holed?

Did it? I know we're a small circle.

What's refreshing and rewarding about PJ Harvey is that any one of her albums can deserve mention as part of the permanent canon.

Well, that's not true, imo. What is true is that they are all worth several listens, couldn't have come from anyone else, are compelling, etc.

I will say as a body of work, she's pretty much transcended ranking, categorization. She's elemental.

this is ILM.

ILMental.

_Who is that Macklemore-looking dude playing bass _

Simon 'Dingo' Archer; AFAIK she borrowed him from The Fall for the 2004 tour.

Yep, PJ covered the spooky Fall song Janet, Johnny and James during this period.

let england shake is one of my top five albums of the 2010s

^ and Rid of Me one of my top five of the '90s.

Recording new album in public, tickets already sold out... http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/pj-harvey-recording-in-progress

haha, this pic is great
http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/images/mi/ef70caeb-987f-464f-b5c2-c22fe12a6909.jpg

Yay, new album!

I applaud the creative ways artists try to get around the demise of the music industry. You can get tickets to sports teams' training sessions too, so why not, I suppose. I'm not buying tickets to go and see a writer type a couple of paragraphs of their next book into a portable though.

How long does it usually take to mix an album :-(

Albini? A couple days. Peter Gabriel? A decade.

She has a book of poetry coming out in the autumn, so I wouldn't expect the album to emerge before early 2016.

I decided I need to own Rid Of Me on record and WTF, why does it sell for that much??

Hasn't it been oop in that format for 20-something years? And even when it was available it wasn't that plentiful?

yeah lots of 90s vinyl is super expensive. my friend was looking at selling stuff they bought when they were a teenager and i was shocked by how much they were going for... like eg http://www.discogs.com/Garbage-Garbage/release/1296095

Fuck, I just looked up the In Utero clear vinyl that I sold for $10 a decade ago and it's going for similar prices.

Trailer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3swyAHvswE8

Great guitar effect

How did I miss this?!

Given all the bad news lately I'm afraid to click on any thread with a proper noun in it.

There is a new 7" imminent.

Given all the bad news lately I'm afraid to click on any thread with a proper noun in it.

So true. I've started to anticipate the worst whenever I first click open a particular artist thread.

New single on 6music right NOW.

http://pitchfork.com/news/63055-pj-harvey-announces-new-album-the-hope-six-demolition-project/

Wow, sounds great!

PJ Harvey - The Hope Six Demolition Project (2016)

It already has its own thread

After years of avoiding her music I finally listened to Rid of Me today and I'm terribly sorry but it was one of the most tedious listening experiences I've had in a while, it took me 3 listens to get through the thing and I'm usually very patient with music. No idea if she's kind of a 'you had to be there' artist but I'd burn this idol down.

And yeah I also don't like Patti Smith.

4-Track Demos version is better.

Maybe I started with the wrong album? I don't know.

A nice thing about PJ Harvey is that if Rid of Me isn't to your liking, she has several albums that sound nothing like it.

Don't really want to keep searching... there's several albums and I found almost no redeeming qualities on Rid of Me to keep listening... which ones would you recommend?

I'm actually rather pissed re:PJ ATM, because dates for her '17 U.S. tour just came out, and she's playing Houston for the first time on her own in about 20+ years (she opened for U2 15 or so ago), and tickets are about to go on sale, and I'm already broke AF.

Moka - "Is This Desire" probably captures Pj at her most diverse stylistically.

Is This Desire is a good pick--really that whole PJ era--To Bring You My Love through Stories From The City...--is good place for those turned off by the shrieky early stuff (which she never really returned to, outside of parts of Uh Huh Her). Of course, there is also Let England Shake.

Ok thanks! I will try to give those a listen but maybe other time... enough PJ for a day for me haha.

Once again, US dates, no Chicago ...

After years of avoiding her music I finally listened to Rid of Me today and I'm terribly sorry but it was one of the most tedious listening experiences I've had in a while, it took me 3 listens to get through the thing and I'm usually very patient with music. No idea if she's kind of a 'you had to be there' artist but I'd burn this idol down.

― Moka, Thursday, December 8, 2016 7:07 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And yeah I also don't like Patti Smith.

― Moka, Thursday, December 8, 2016

well, that's two. One more woman and you're rid of them.

For what it's worth, I love Harvey and loathe Patti Smith, so the two don't have to go together.

this is the first time i can remember disagreeing with moka

i found rid of me almost unlistenable when i first got it, but i think that's more to do with albini than PJH. i love it now but i think it's a good one to find your way back to after getting into the rest of her work.

my list of the best PJ Harvey songs.

my list of the best PJ Harvey songs.

rong

No My Beautiful Leah or There Will Never Be a Better Time (with Desert Sessions)? Wicked list anyways!

she wants wicked

Anyone going to see her live on this tour?

i am. this album seems like kind of a blip. it never really settled with me, I resisted it, and when I lsiten to it it doesn't do much for me; whereas I loved Let England Shake (and everything prior, pretty much). It's been several years since I've seen her so I'm hoping live I feel more invested in these songs.

Agree with you on all points akm. Glastonbury 2016 set made these songs come alive a little more, but yeah "Hope Six Demolition Project" is the only retread in Pj Harvey's catalog it seems.

vs. uh-huh her's detread?

Guess that's a retread too, but a much better one IMO

I saw her last year on the UK portion of the tour and it was an incredible show, way exceeding all my expectations. I'm lukewarm on the album, but loved it all live. The show was like a piece of theatre or performance rather than a gig, but musically her and the band were astounding, and it all totally worked.

she is a monster live, i saw her around 1998/99 in munich and she rocked the place like crazy. a whirlwind with guitar.

She doesn't move too much in the new show, but has a great stage presence regardless.

That's reassuring to hear, krakow. Saw her on the Stories tour which was great but I have a feeling I'll appreciate the live band more this time.

I'm seeing her in Boston because why not. But yeah, the new album was such a nonevent.

Does she play guitar, or just, like, hurdy gurdy?

iirc she only sings in the current setup

Mainly she sings, but she does also play sax and guitar in the current set.

Just announced two nights in Edinburgh for the International Festival in August. I'll definitely head over for one of those.

Going to the Brooklyn show. Not a fan of the last few records but she's always been great live and her band will probably be top shelf. Plus, looking forward to seeing the new venue.

Saw her in the last Primavera Sound. Didn't like last album either but the tracks sound great live. Her performance makes a difference

The band is absolutely first rate. Some jaw-dropped performances. The saxophone solos from the main guy in particular I could barely believe, he was awesome.

Saw her in Seattle. Thought the new songs fared better live, especially "The Ministry Of Social Affairs" with the jazz skronk solos. So awesome to see PJ playing sax as well. Highlights were "Written On The Forehead" and "The River" from my favourite album, "Is This Desire?".

gonna drive to LA to see her in a few days. she's prob my favorite living artist that i've never gotten to see live.

Awesome, JD. She's insanely inspiring, hope you enjoy the show.

My "definitely" became a "sadly not" and I didn't make either Edinburgh International Festival shows because of work/life. Did anyone go?

Guys, back in around 1993/4 someone I knew had a demo of four or so tracks that PJ Harvey had recorded with the horn section from a then current group, the name of which eludes me.

I've looked through her discography and haven't seen anything that seems to fit this description. Any bells going off?

maybe the March 1993 peel session?

Yeah, the Peel session where she did Claudine the Inflatable One, Primed and Ticking, Wang Dang Doodle and Naked Cousin has a horn section, but I don't know who they were.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw5QXwuQgcs

Ah, cool. If not the same recordings then it's presumably the same setup. No horns credited on two tracks releases on Peel Sessions it seems.

My recollection is that the tape was manufactured and had some basic artwork. As in, not something recorded off the radio. Maybe there was a release mooted at some point.

*the two tracks released on Peel Session 1991 - 2004

Did some digging – the horns came from Gallon Drunk.

Iirc Gallon Drunk may have been the opening act on some or many dates of the tour?

Yes, Gallon Drunk used to open for her back in 1993, at least on some dates.

Terry Edwards and James Johnston (both from GD) are now members of PJ's current touring band.

I saw Gallon Drunk open for her in '93. I knew nothing about them at the time, but they had a baritone player who killed.

Scrawl was the other opener, and they were equally killer.

Really into acre of land

More classic than the last album entirely

Love "Acre of Land" as well. IMO the last album wasn't as bad as some people made it out to be, but it definitely didn't enter my PJ top 5. The tour, though, was fantastic. She's an incredible live performer and it was a joy to see her (twice, lucky me!) with this big tight band. Apparently she's taking some time away from music now to focus on her lyric and poetry writing, so unfortunately it might be a while until she tours again.

BTW today is the 25th anniversary of Rid of Me!

Indeed! Rob Sheffield on same

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/pj-harvey-rid-of-me-25-rob-sheffield-pays-tribute-w519777

The tour was incredible. Saw her in Seattle - no opening band and she’s on at like 9. Full 8-10 piece band with an intro military procession beat. Closed with tbyml, down by the water and importantly - the river. From the record Is this desire which pj has said is her favourite record but it also came from a place of immense pain. New songs worked better live but I’d say let England shake live confirmed it’s her master work

Will say the uh huh tour was absolute fire though. Floods drumming and klinghoffers 2nd percussion and guitar took tracks like the garden to another level. Highlight

My beautiful leah

Never seen her live.

You're missing out, my friend.

Alfred, come correct my man

Honestly, I think current Polly live is too austere, rehearsed and remote. I miss the guitar, I miss the band, I miss the occasional flashes of humor. Unless carrying around a sax (iirc) is her idea of humor.

she's come by my reckoning exactly zero times to South Florida in the last 20 years.

She was at Pitchfork last summer!

*smacks head*

i drove to LA just to see her last summer, don't regret it a bit

Wanna feel old? Rid Of Me LP is 25 years old today

Also loved the concert I saw during the White Chalk tour in 2008 -- a solo show with her playing the guitar, piano, keyboards, autoharp and a bunch of other stuff, very stripped down and intimate. She was chatty, often funny and seemed like a lovely, likeable person -- miles away from the well-rehearsed big band theatrics of the Hope Six tour (which I loved, too, albeit for very different reasons). As always incredibly charismatic and intense, locking eyes with audience members while playing.

Hopefully this means a long career

https://variety.com/2018/dirt/real-estalker/pj-harvey-sierra-towers-condo-west-hollywood-1202845331/

That's the flat from the "Who the Fuck" video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxcCN6BgO_k

The "Dress" demo has dubstep wub-wub bass. A woman ahead of her time.

Getting down to her albs. Dry is such a classic. Rid of me is solid though I don't like that Dylan cover (and they are usually great), and did lol at some of the Slint-era tunings.

A Woman, A Man: John Parish's Favourite PJ Harvey Recordings
^Great stuff

The demo albums she's been putting out recently mostly go to show how fully formed her songs seem to have been from the start. The woman's a genius.

I was dismayed to hear that my equal favourite album of hers, "Is This Desire?", was so traumatic for her to make.
Also found it telling that the Hope Six track wasn't described at all, just the logistics of the recording. She kind of lost me after White Chalk.

Fascinating read! I kind of love it that John is not even mentioning Stories.

I'm both very impressed and slightly disappointed by the TBYML and ITD demos - it's indeed amazing that these songs were pretty much fully developed while she was writing and demoing them at home BUT it makes for a less interesting listen than 4-Track Demos (which were so unlike Rid of Me).

I guess this might change with future volumes of the series - e.g. the LES and THSDP demos apparently were very minimal and the arrangements were developed while jamming the songs live in the studio (or rather church/art gallery) with the band - so they will be probably fairly different from the final versions.

man the second record she did with Parish in 2009? DO NOT sleep on that, matthewk…that is a bit of a bummer that the creation of Is this Desire was so fraught…or is it? Isn't major creativity often fraught?

the Hope Six record is the only record she has ever made that I've actively disliked…but good grief these demo records are indeed staggering… like 80% of what you hear of the finished product of "A Perfect Day Elise," one of my favorite recordings ever, is right there in that demo… and when Parish talks about how there are two phases, the bare bones sessions and the expensive sessions, the latter were to gussy up "elise"…I wager "Catherine," the other one therein that I treasure, is intact from the former sessions…

The demo of "To Bring You My Love" is so menacing

I'm not a huge fan of the glossy production of Stories but the raw demo version of the album is pretty awesome. Such a strong collection of songs; I don't understand why Beefheart told her these were her weakest demos.

The Let England Shake demos are out today and they're the best installment in the series so far IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs_s2IkbGxw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18MpYe9Xwxk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jdCzt74OCo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgkWxTldY1s

Oh man I hope they announce a b-sides collection please

I need to give that album another chance. I could never get into it - the concept never seemed to translate well into a great musical experience - but I was a big fan of her work and I know plenty of people love Let England Shake. It even got to #2 in the P&J poll, albeit in a weak year.

(I should say, I'm still a big fan of her work, just not of her more recent albums.)

Listening to Rid of Me and its still staggering!

never seen this before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpFSppgBpUc

Me neither! Seems like it was just before she made Dry.

Not a bad song but the male frontman has serious ewww vibes

everything is so cheesy til she starts singing! her voice cuts through the cheese, amazing!! 18 year old me loves to see it <3

A new interview in The Observer about her upcoming book (a narrative poem written in the Dorset dialect) offers this exciting tidbit:

She lets slip that she has a new album coming out next year and, although not supposed to be talking about it, allows herself to say: “I’m really pleased with it – and I’m my own harshest critic.”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/apr/24/pj-harvey-poetry-dorset-orlam-interview

https://www.nme.com/news/music/pj-harvey-update-on-new-album-to-be-released-2023-3258356

https://www.nme.com/news/music/listen-to-pj-harveys-haunting-cover-of-leonard-cohens-who-by-fire-3294140

Loving recent Dylan, soundtracks by Sakamoto, and Greenwood and covering Leonard Cohen. Yup sounds like stuff PJ Harvey would like (in a good way)

I was pleased to see a Mica Levi shoutout, they’re a criminally underrated artist for me

i appreciate her shoutout to rough and rowdy ways

i appreciate her

She walked past me on Sunday (away from The Smile's set) at the Nick Cave All Points East in Victoria Park. Last time Nick Cave did one of these, Kylie appeared as a surprise guest, so I was absolutely convinced PJ was gonna come on for Henry Lee - but sadly not.

Her Instagram has been a sea of photos old and new lately.

Argh, I want a b-sides collection!!! Was hoping that would finish off the reissue series.

Nervous about a new album because Hope Six was such a disappointment.

John Parish said in a recent interview that the new album is recorded but not mastered, will be out some time next year, and is closely tied to her new poetry book Orlam (i.e. the song lyrics are poems lifted from the book—which means an album in the Dorset dialect), so we know that at least thematically it will be miles away from Hope Six.

A B-sides and rarities box set coming this month!!!!!!! My finances, already perilous, are screwed, but fuck it, this is a dream come true!

https://www.thegardenforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2858

Already working out the stuff that's missing though... fuck

e.g. Claudine the Inflatable One but loads of others

https://imgur.com/A66bxne

https://i.imgur.com/A66bxne.jpeg

I'll take it though!

Oh man! I don’t even know a lot of these songs, so excited

yeah, buncha stuff on the last two LPs i’ve never heard of. this is exciting!

This is good news but so many demos there vs so many songs (esp from films, TV series) missing.

No Wang Dang Doodle?

Exciting, and yes, I could think of 20 other rarities that should be here, as well as live stuff, covers, guest features etc. but I'm glad at least these are being released in one place. Record 2 and 3 in particular just look like strong, pretty cohesive albums that will warrant repeated listening.

Despite all the amputations, I am so stoked for this. For the most part I’m clueless to her rare tracks and whatnot, so this is a lot of extra PJ for me to absorb.

As someone said upthread and I find myself saying too often these days, I hope there’s a CD version.

Here we go

https://www.treblezine.com/pj-harvey-announces-b-sides-demos-rarities-box-set/

excuse my ignorance, but how much overlap does this have with all the demo records that have come out in the last couple years?

excuse my ignorance, but how much overlap does this have with all the demo records that have come out in the last couple years?

― bulb after bulb

There's no overlap.

The "Missed", "Dry", "Me-Jane" and "Highway 61 Revisited" demos were not included on 4-Track Demos, and the "Cat on the Wall" and "You Come Through" demos were for some reason omitted from Uh Huh Her - Demos.

Everything else is non-album material B-sides, B-side demos, random rarities, etc.

vinyl only then?

xp thanks! amazing (and great) that there's so much still there after the demo records.

vinyl only then?

― StanM

3CD and digital too!

oh great! thanks!

I almost pre-ordered the CC version yesterday, then realized that the most basic shipping option was more than the cost of the set.

So: I’ll be looking for this in a local record store.

the b-sides/rarities/demos collection is so fucking good. it's the only thing i've been listening to for a few days

what is the deal with "maniac"? very similar arrangement to "down by the water" but a completely different (and great) song

I was about to post a similar comment. Maybe I'm burned out on "Down...," but I might prefer "Maniac."

New album coming, there are two teaser videos on her socials and an announcement is scheduled for Tuesday evening.

A new playlist is now available on Spotify, featuring tracks co-produced alongside @JohnParish50 and Flood: https://t.co/TUAnzOjwWk

New studio clip filmed, directed and edited by #SteveGullick. pic.twitter.com/EWIHnTpzfA

— PJ Harvey (@PJHarveyUK) April 19, 2023

A second studio clip… filmed, directed and edited by #SteveGullick.

If you would like to be first to hear about new music, join the PJ Harvey mailing list community https://t.co/ZUXlkAPgbv pic.twitter.com/dhRhga6xPi

— PJ Harvey (@PJHarveyUK) April 21, 2023

The tracklisting shown in one of the videos indicates the record is based on poems from Orlam.

I Inside the Old Year Dying
out July 7th on Partisan Records

https://i.ibb.co/r4q6hSQ/IMG-9193.jpg

1. Prayer at the Gate
2. Autumn Term
3. Lwonesome Tonight
4. Seem an I
5. The Nether-edge
6. I Inside the Old Year Dying
7. All Souls
8. A Child's Question, August
9. I Inside the Old I Dying
10. August
11. A Child's Question, July
12. A Noiseless Noise

PJ Harvey says, "After many years of work I am very happy to release this collection of new songs. It was a difficult album to make and took time to find its strongest form, but it has finally become all I hoped for it to be."

I Inside the Old Year Dying marks PJ Harvey's first album in seven years, produced and mixed by her long-time creative collaborators John Parish and Flood.

"On this album PJ Harvey builds a sonic universe somehow located in a space between life's opposites, and between recent history and the ancient past.

Scattered with biblical imagery and references to Shakespeare, all of these distinctions ultimately dissolve into something profoundly uplifting and redemptive." - John Harris, March 2023

First single "A Child's Question, August" out tomorrow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvYMlixvzHM

that sounds great!

Yeah. I’ve not understood her need to use her high, reedy register for so many of the more recent records, but this is beginning to sound like the Polly I used to admire so fiercely.

I enjoy her in that higher mode, but I agree the "tender love" lines in that^ are really powerful

I've given up waiting for her to sound like the old days. Polly as rock juggernaut remains all-time for me. Polly as chamber-gloom I can take or leave. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever got around to listening to the last one!

It does look like she's playing guitar again in this video, but no, it's not exactly a return to the 90s.

Interesting that she's not on Island anymore.

huh, I really can't relate at all to wanting her to sound like her 90s albums again (if that is what you're saying?). I don't think I ever listened to Hope 6 in full either, but Let England Shake is a masterpiece. Besides, I'm not convinced "rock juggernaut" was ever a truly accurate descriptor for her--at the very least it ignores aspects of her music that were present early on

I meant her trio; those first two albums are two of my fave rock albums of all time, and they do rock. The chamber stuff starts to creep in with album three, and I do like that one a lot and a couple of the ones after (specifically Songs/Stories and Let England Shake), but tbh most of her albums I don't go back to nearly as often as I do those first two.

Hope 6 is the only album of hers that I would call a failure. It's obvious, the lyrics are didactic, the music isn't compelling. Some of those songs worked a little better live. But it wasn't a failure in the sense that "she's lost it." It was more like failed experiment that I'm hoping she progresses from.

Not sure about "A Child's Question." I'm probably biased because someone pointed out that the lyrics are based on poems. The song sounds like a static background for her recitations. Maybe I need to pay more attention to the lyrics.

I kept up with all of the recent reissues, most of which I had on CD. White Chalk was a great discovery for me; I had passed it up when it was released and that is some good, spooky shit.

100% co-sign on White Chalk being an underrated gem, it gets lost between Let England Shake and her earlier rockier stuff like Stories, but it's an incredible record, a true self-contained little spooky world.

I would say that Hope Six and Uh Huh Her are her only two real missteps. Both kind of feel more like failed experiments than fully-realised pieces of work. Judging from the press release, Hope Six left her creatively spent:

I Inside the Old Year Dying’s story goes back six years, to the end of touring around her last album in 2017 and how Harvey felt immediately afterwards. What she keenly felt was that somewhere in the endless cycle of albums and tours, she had lost her connection with the music itself, a realisation that was troubling beyond words.

This was hardly a time of creative withdrawal: thanks to mentoring by the Scottish poet Don Paterson, she worked on Orlam, the accomplished work of poetry – her second, after 2015’s The Hollow of the Hand – that was published last year and became one of the new album’s key inspirations. There were also the reissues of Harvey’s preceding albums – and, in new editions, their demo versions – that came out between 2020 and 2022. But eventually, two things began to push her in the direction of new songs, music and sounds.

One was the memory of a meeting with the artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen, in Chicago, during the Hope Six period. His advice was to remember what she loves about words, images and music and to put away the concept of writing “an album” to focus on and play with these three passions. The other catalyst for a return to music was simple: the sheer act of playing it. Picking up the guitar or sitting down at the piano to play her favourite songs by such artists as Nina Simone or Bob Dylan - reconfirmed her passion for the art form.

Something soon started to cohere. When Harvey began to write new songs, there was a liberating sense of making music for its own sake rather than the first steps back into the album-tour-album-tour cycle. She drew on the sense of creative freedom she had felt in past musical work on soundtracks and in the theatre. At the same time, her perspective was shifting away from the big themes of Let England Shake and Hope Six (“looking out, at war, politics, the world”) towards something more intimate and human.

Anyway, I think lyrically the new album might be a tough sell for a casual listener? All the poems are written in Dorset dialect and they're part of a narrative that the album doesn't stick to, judging from the tracklisting. And musically apparently the whole thing was recorded/put together via live improvisation between her, John Parish and Flood.

"A Child's Question, August" is lovely (it's the actor Ben Whishaw on the backing vocals, btw) but feels like such an unassuming choice for a lead single; I'm really curious how the whole thing will turn out.

People who have obviously written their own Wikipedia entry

also I’m not convinced an account of a complete lack of inspiration and years of trying to get started is a great way to entice potential listeners

Didn't love *every* era of hers, but at the very least, every iteration of Polly has been interesting. White Chalk was a little boring to me (might have to go back and listen to it to truly appreaciate it) and I thought Hope 6 was more interesting lyrically than sonically but once a fan always a fan. I actually really loved Stories but I think it sounds better live. (Same for Rid of Me).

Imo her sexiest/best record is probably 'Is this Desire'. Idk if Dancehall at Louise Point was any good (Been a couple of years since I've listened' but it certainly had a profound effect on me.

Looking forward to where she goes with 'I Inside the Old Dying Year'.
I'm not reallyyy a creature of nostalgia so even though I don't love everything she puts out- I can appreciate her constant evolution in artistry.

Uh Huh Her wasn't an experiment: it was a return to the brutalist sound of Rid of Me with a decade's worth of knowledge about albums, cool sounds, and textures.

even though I don't love everything she puts out- I can appreciate her constant evolution in artistry.

my take, pretty much. my faves are still To Bring You My Love and Is This Desire, but a new one is always worth a listen

xp Alfred OTM re: Uh Huh Her. I think it holds up really well, plus it opens with one of the all-time great detuned guitar riffs.

been waiting for thirty years for pj harvey to rock out again, wonder if it’s ever gonna happen

This new video has made me optimistic about enjoying her new release for the first time in a long time. Uh Huh Her was mostly dull, and suggested that she'd emptied the well of writing from "personal experience", but each of the subsequent records, despite having a few notable songs, felt like homework, "this-is-for-your-own-good" art.
She has definitely never chosen the easy path, though, and that deserves a lot of respect.

I kinda felt like she was co-opted by the Guardian readership and leaned into the “high culture icon” thing. I’ve loved her work since Dry but I didn’t go see her when she came to town about 10 years ago, the promo image showed her with black feathers in her hair playing an autoharp and I thought you know what, no thanks.

I mean, she already made two power-trio records. We can still listen to those if we want. While I haven’t loved everything she’s done since (though I do love most of it), it’s extremely fascinating and exciting to see how/that she keeps challenging herself and her audience.

It’s not the challenging aspect I object to, it’s just that the records haven’t been very good. I found things to enjoy on Let England Shake (“Hanging in the Wire” is incredible) but the concept took over from the art too regularly. Hope Six just felt like preachy homework, (as well described above). On the other hand I love the experimentation on Desire and it’s my equal favourite with Rid of Me.

It’s similar to my problem with Nick Cave - when an artist becomes aware of their cultural status, some assume the mantle and it’s fatal for their work. PJH is far greater than Cave so I have hope she will dig out.

She became a little like post-New York Lou Reed, without the vulgarity to be able to pull out a "Sex With Your Parents" every once in a while.

xps I think I meant “In the Dark Places”, it’s been a while since I listened to it.

In The Dark Places is amazing, yes

idk if pj harvey who has released only one kinda retready album (hope six) (uh huh her is mad underrated and misunderstood) merits this discourse, new song feels like she’s resumed fearlessly pushing forward, speaking of i’d sooner compare her to bowie than reed or cave

obv anyone can feel however they like but we might not get an artist like her ever again so my receptors are set on appreciating what we have

otm. I'm surprised by some of the sourness here. two different accusations of "homework" 🤔

I don't think either of those takes are wrong at all, but at the same time I wouldn't want to overstate her value/talents. For example, I would not really consider her fearless or a radical Bowie-like reinventor, just a songwriter who sometimes struggles with what to say and how to say it. Like I said, she's released at least two, maybe three, of my favorite albums of all time, which is more than most acts, but she's also released a lot of stuff I find kind of boring. Granted, boring on her own terms, and not really boring in a "bad" way, just boring in a way that doesn't really click with me. That's of course personal taste (or lack thereof!).

If she were a minor/lesser talent, she'd keep releasing albums in one mode for eternity.

Yeah, I dunno. What was that (apocryphal?) Peter Buck quote about being able to write songs like "Driver 8" in his sleep?

Anyway, the reason I value her as a major talent, even though she makes a lot of music that does not move me, is that it would not shock me in the least if she released an album in the future that I would add to my list of all-time faves.

I don’t think any of us are arguing that she’s anything less than a stellar talent. I’ve considered her in the top rank of, well, anyone in music since her debut. It hurts to not enjoy what she’s doing. I hope to again. And like Bowie, when I don’t enjoy the work I kinda assume it’s me, not her.

It's not always you

https://media.tenor.com/SowoYaZKAW8AAAAd/david-bowie-mick-jagger.gif

idk she's only made one real misstep at this point with hope six

i would welcome a return to something more directly in the lineage of her 90s work of course, that's still her best period, but i don't think she'd have to repeat herself or anything to do that

the new track is a weird single choice, not particularly compelling on its own but could work better in the context of the album

Nobody who cares about her should sleep on the '96 and '09 records credited to she and Parrish… indeed Hope Six is the only mediocre record she has made…that tour is the only time I ever seen her, and it was at Terminal 5, the most intolerable large venue in NYC…

I have to say, despite Hope Six the album being mediocre, the tour behind it was great -- saw two shows, a huge 10-piece band with two drummers and a bunch of saxes playing a career-spanning set (heavy on Let England Shake - which I love - but also featuring some 90s favourites); they were incredible.

I loved Dance Hall at Louse Point, probably in my top 3 of her records, and was very pleased she played a number of songs from it when I saw her in 1998. A Woman a Man Walked By is the only one of her albums I haven't heard, it seemed to come and go with little fanfare.

With PJ back in the limelight YouTube randomly reminded me of this UHH-era live Slim Harpo / Stones cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzApY1nCcSk

She also used to do The Fall's "Janet + Johnny" back in 2004:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLg0FhUTeRI

If I'm not mistaken both recordings are from a semi-acoustic gig she did at Royal Court Theatre in England at the end of that tour.

Hope Six is underrated (just ignore the lyrics!) and I agree the live show for it was great (....but the most memorable part was the rush when "50 Ft. Queenie" started; I think how outrageously good she was in the 90s overshadows her current stuff which suffers from the comparison).

This thread inspired me to revisit A Woman Walked By. At the time(s) I didn’t care about these John Parish collaboration records - I was RONG. Great stuff.

Ooh a lot of interesting takes here. I have to say I actually liked Hope Six.

'been waiting for thirty years for pj harvey to rock out again, wonder if it’s ever gonna happen'

She's in her avant garde folk phase right now, so probably not, or at least not the way she used to in the 90s/early aughts. One can hope, though.

"I mean, she already made two power-trio records. We can still listen to those if we want. While I haven’t loved everything she’s done since (though I do love most of it), it’s extremely fascinating and exciting to see how/that she keeps challenging herself and her audience."

Agreed! I don't see the Bowie parallel (Maybe because Polly's transition from one sound to next hasn't been that drastic) but I feel similarly insomuch that I didn't love everything he did either; he's a genius but my personal feelings are that everything he did was either a swing or a miss. Still I feel there's merit in the ways she refuses to do the same things over and over.

Just got tickets for the second night in Glasgow.

I love ‘A Child’s Question, August’ of the two songs released so far.

There was a play-through of the full album alongside an interview on French radio and I really enjoyed what I heard. Bits and pieces reminded me of different PJH eras, e.g. hazy soundscapes (analogue synths, field recordings) brought to mind Is This Desire B-sides, some ghostlike vocals nodded to White Chalk, and folk-rock elements seemed to be a natural progression from what she did on Let England Shake (musically, not lyrically — although no saxophone or autoharp this time around), but overall the whole thing is very much its own weird beast. Definitely won’t lure back the crowd that lost interest when she stopped rocking out but it had so many gorgeous, moving and slightly bizzare moments sprinkled throughout that I can already see myself returning to it more often than to Hope Six — thankfully the self-important quality of that record is gone.

Seems to have a very ‘live’/rehearsal/warts-and-all quality, too, aparently a lot of the recordings were first takes, sometimes half-improvised. Can’t wait to listen to it properly in good quality.

I’m sure the lyrics will be puzzling to people who have not read the book, though — the poems chosen for the songs don’t really construct a narrative when taken out of context, more of an obscure vibe. Plenty of dialect vocabulary, lots of recurring motifs, especially references to death and Elvis. And femboys! Lol

from that description, aoty

Thank you! I’m intrigued.

Despite reservations I’m ready for this to be great, I mean she is a fucking genius

New profile in the Guardian by Laura Snapes:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/01/pj-harvey-interview-i-inside-the-old-year-dying

this is probably her weirdest album, quite minimal and atmospheric. it's closest to is this desire (the quieter bits for the most part) and let england shake (though with the autoharp replaced by pastoral fingerpicked guitar). it's quite a nice mix of sounds, but there's often not that much to the songs themselves, a lot tend to just stay in one place (though there are impressive exceptions)

the lyrics are largely impenetrable (them being significantly in an obscure english dialect certainly doesn't help) but what i can make out seems to have a significant focus on elvis-as-christ and gender. was taken aback by her singing of 'femboys in the forest'

i don't think this is going to be one of my favourite of her albums or anything but it'll probably grow on me a fair bit and just giving a taste of 'what if if this desire didn't have such a flat mix' is enough to make me relatively fond of it

the general vibe of it reminds me of third a fair bit actually? certainly not as bleak or as haunted but there's a similarity

Ann Powers interviews her: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/06/1185749989/pj-harvey-i-inside-the-old-year-dying-orlam-interview

If you don't have a physical copy (or have not read Orlam), the official website has annotations to the lyrics that make them easier to parse:

https://pjharvey.net/lyrics/?release=i-inside-the-old-year-dying

god the enormous harrowing world that opens up and beckons you into it when you start this record

After one listen, I feel like I need to listen to it further - a good sign.

I'm loving it. It sounds like her again.

Got my CD today but not listened yet.

Hmmm, interesting but not a lot of fun to listen to? For me anyway.

idk is white chalk fun to listen to? the new one feels like it sits next to that one more than anything imo. the songs certainly have been creeping into me slowly like some kind of mold. and i think there's audible wonder in the realm harvey/parish/flood are creating with the wispiest gestures

a fragmented account of things that seem intimately woven into each other (e.g. the recurrence of figures like "wyman-elvis" and the repeated interpolations/inversions of "love me tender"). songs can be static as a photograph or mutant as the ground of a swamp. like sifting through the damaged remains of something long after its ended, but also finding something eternal in it, something that's being repeated over and over again behind the skin of reality, like a heartbeat

off topic I got the Peel Sessions comp on that Sound of Vinyl sale and wow, what an amazing document

It's a more compelling listen than White Chalk, which at the time I tagged as the first chapter in a phase we wouldn't see -- until now: skeletal by design, testing her vocal range. The lyric sheet looks like transcribed Geoffrey Hill poems, and her own lyrics have his curiosity about English myths and folklore.

xp me too! I am perhaps driving my family crazy with the frequency of wang dang doodles.

i think the first and last tracks are the best

Brad nails the feeling.

thank u raymond (fyi i'm going by "ivy" now, prob one day soon i'll appear with a different username)

the new yorker interview is v good.

let england shake had been the first thing id liked of hers for a while, a long while. and hope 6 left me cold. but this album is really working its way into me. at first i felt the music was a little weak - just a sort of funereal pattering and chiming - the field recordings, the interleaving of themes and phrases, her voice of course, create the feeling of a whole work - almost a song cycle (listening to Abrahamsen’s Let Me Tell You cycle of songs comprising only words used by Ophelia in Hamlet, from Paul Griffiths’ novel of the same name, is the closest recent listening experience i’ve had). i’m still circling around it, still a bit hesitating and uncertain - the slightness of it - but it feels pretty magical to me. a scrap of something in the wind caught on barbed wire on a country walk.

i think it was the nether edge that first switched me on to the album.

She was every bit as good as I'd hoped and expected at the recent live show (I went to the second night in Glasgow).

Given that, I'm more than a little tempted by the London show that's just been announced for next year at Gunnersbury Park. What's that like as a venue, if anyone has been? I also only know Big Thief from the others on the bill, in case there's anything in particular I should check out to aid decision making.

PJ Harvey announces her only London summer performance of 2024 at Gunnersbury Park, a Grade II listed parkland venue within walking distance of Acton Town and Ealing Broadway, on Sunday 18th August 2024.

PJ Harvey says, “I’m grateful to Gunnersbury Park for inviting me to curate this event. I have chosen what I feel to be some of the most exciting artists working today. With them I hope to be able to give the audience an emotional, heartening and uplifting experience.”

The line-up includes special guests Big Thief, Tirzah, and Shida Shahabi.

Saw her last month and all I can say is her current show is insanely good—perhaps not surprisingly, I have never seen her be anything less than stellar live, but she still exceeded my expectations. She had a small four-person backing band featuring John Parish and James Johnston from Gallon Drunk/Bad Seeds and a pretty simple but theatrical staging (old furniture scattered all over lol). The first half focused just on I Inside the Old Year Dying performed from the beginning to the end (and boy how this album comes alive in concert!) and then the second hour was pretty much a back catalogue dive, from Let England Shake through favs from Is This Desire (“The Garden”!) and To Bring You My Love to early work like "Man-Size" or "Dress". Vocally impeccable and she hasn’t lost an ounce of her charisma.

And yes, she’s doing festivals/open air shows in Europe next year and then a tour of the US in the fall—don’t miss!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtYDx_2L1mo

Cool. Miss rockin' Polly. That trio ruled.

That Gunnersbury Park show...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSUgrhmtXIw

Glad I held off on the London show now, with more dates just announced, including Halifax at The Piece Hall, which looks like a really nice venue. Might look into heading there instead.

the 13 Oct Paris show will be on Arte's youtube channel in two days:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30IJIexCS24

I've been working my way through the mass of Harvey vinyl I've acquired in the past couple of years (demos, B-sides box, neglected albums).

Let England Shake demos might be my favorite demo disc. It's startling to hear those songs paired back and raw.

Hope Six demos are better than the actual album. If she had just released those through a web site or as a smaller project it would probably have a better reputation. It's still not great by any means, but smallness helps it.

cool, I'll give those a listen. I haven't actually listened to the demos for any of these (other than the old 4 track Demos release); I picked up the Peel Sessions record but that was it.

late to the new one but really liking it, sounds like her ghost made a record

that Paris concert just started streaming fyi

I've been a doubter but no more, that is a fantastic show. What an artist.

yes, I needed to see the live performances to get me over the line re: the album again (this seems to be the pattern with me and her albums now)

3 songs missing from the complete show: 16 Angelene, 17 Send His Love to Me and 24 C'mon Billy

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/pj-harvey/2023/lolympia-bruno-coquatrix-paris-france-2ba3443a.html

Angelene is a big favourite, I'm glad she's comfortable going back to it.

yeah wish those were included; this is a great show

fitting she closed this with White Chalk, I've been thinking that's the album the new one is most like (also an album lots of people had a hard time with; it's one of my favorites, I like her gothy shit)

oh maybe I should listen to the new one then, I love White Chalk

sounds like her ghost made a record

this is an accurate description

Let England Shake demos might be my favorite demo disc. It's startling to hear those songs paired back and raw.

gave several of the demo discs a partial listen over the past day; some are interesting, some are not; some have replay value, some don't (some of the ones for Is this Desire sounds like the demos were just overdubbed and worked on to become the final versions). The most illuminating thing about Let England Shake was how those songs appear to have been written around samples from other tracks; suddenly "gonna take my problems to the united nations" makes total sense, the entire drum rhythm for the song comes from Summertime Blues.

Great new interview / live session from World Cafe:
https://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe/2023/12/15/1219342795/pj-harvey-album-i-inside-the-old-year-dying

Offers some candid insights into writing Hope 6:

I can remember whilst I was writing The Hope Six Demolition Project album, which was the album prior to this one, it felt like hard work. I had to really graft to get anything good, and that seemed to continue. And even the songs that I was writing, I felt like they were just missing the mark for what I really wanted to be doing. It was such a struggle, and it was not enjoyable. I thought, “I’m not enjoying this, this is feeling more like homework you’ve got to do than the love of my life”. And I just kept thinking, “Keep working through it, just work through it, it will pass”. And it didn’t, really.

She's been reading my posts: "each of the subsequent records, despite having a few notable songs, felt like homework, 'this-is-for-your-own-good' art."

I can't find that quote in the interview page - has it been edited, maybe?

^ I transcribed it from the audio interview, the quotes on the website are just excerpts

Oh nice! Will listen.

PJ Harvey ticketmaster pre-sale today for some shows in North America

password is NOISELESS

Got my ticket !!!

got 4th row at the Greek. probably the first time I've spent over $100 for a ticket, but worth it. other than the reading/mini-set she did in the fall, haven't seen her in 20 years.

i’ll be further back in the greek, nearly considered buying closer but i don’t get paid til later in the week. went to her last show there on the ‘hope six’ tour, can’t waitttt

I briefly considered getting a ticket but just couldn't pull the trigger for a $100+ ticket considering I like but don't love her album from last year and I know she'll play older tracks and it'll be a great show overall but why do shows have to be so fucking expensive these days fuck this

Not a fan of Terminal 5 here in NYC, the venue really sucks for multiple reasons, but I guess the tradeoff is that the show's GA with tickets being $85 including fees. Is the Greek really nice?

Pondering a ticket

I'm glad to finally be on my proper jouney with PJ
I've danced around it for years

really assumed the masonic shows in SF would be fully seated but apparently floor is GA, which is fine. Happy these tickets were only $75, completely reasonable for how amazing this is going to be.

DC show at Anthem appears to be GA too

for the floor