PJ Harvey : Classic or Dud

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.

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