PJ Harvey - The Hope Six Demolition Project (2016)

i'm p sure there are books abt that

suggest ban based on history

the reasons i love LES have little to do with history! funnily enough.

There are books mentioning it of course. But there never has been a reasonable explanation i have heard of.

And what is it then? The music?

While LES has narratives, it's a mistake to call it history in song or an exercise in political history. "Bitter Branches," to take one, has enough fury to suggest all kinds of sources.

There are books mentioning it of course. But there never has been a reasonable explanation i have heard of.

― it's the distortion, stupid! (alex in mainhattan), Tuesday, February 2, 2016 2:21 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

people tend to do what they're told by authority
it's easier to not intervene than intervene
most ppl didn't know the full extent of what was going on
a lot of germans at the time were p anti-semetic to begin with

demagoguery? i'd listen to a PJH album about that.

yeah, i dunno, i just think it's a really good work of art that goes beyond the subject matter for me. i love the red badge of courage but not because it's a "war novel". kinda like that.

i got mad when simon reynolds posted something on facebook like blimey just what we need another anti-war album and i felt like he was missing something. it goes beyond that! for me anyway. it hits a lot of emotional buttons for me. just vocally alone.

i just think it was a really successful THING. i mean i guess it could have been about a lot of things subject-wise, but she set out to do something and it worked really well. compelling. powerful. well-constructed. if it had been a symphony i would have said wow great symphony!

Xp. Ant-semitism in Germany has not been stronger than in the neighbouring countries. But how can a highly civilized country follow a primitive squaller like h.? where did all the culture, the literature, the philosopy etc. go? Sorry i don't want to derail the thread.

While LES has narratives, it's a mistake to call it history in song or an exercise in political history. "Bitter Branches," to take one, has enough fury to suggest all kinds of sources.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, February 2, 2016 8:23 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes - it takes the character work PJH was already renowned for and applies it to a situation that's actually familiar to us rather than something strange from her imagination - she approaches getting into the headspace of WW1 soldiers very similarly to how she approaches getting into the headspace of heroines of unwritten gothic victorian novels on ITD?

plus, her pre-LES work is absolutely littered with imagery of war and violence to describe internal/emotional states, or sometimes actual human conflict! i mean LES was not the first time she did the whole journalist-in-war-zone thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AhTTXmsxlM

so yeah, her work has always had these through-lines, but there's also been a huge shift in perspective each time as well...

wouldn't mind moving to the planet people confused by the success of the nazis live on

I'm also not particularly interested in history, especially war history, but fully agree with Scott here: regardless of specific subject matter, LES just resonates with me on an aesthetic and emotional level.

And what is it then? The music?

I know you basically only like faithful replications of 80s jangly indie, but... of course it's the fucking music.

hahaha

I know you basically only like faithful replications of 80s jangly indie

I count 16 that I'd say were strongly related to jangly 80s indie one way or another.

Oh wow another Swell fan!

"The Wheel" is great, I'm not sure where people get LES part II from this, at least not musically. It has more in common with "The Sky Lit Up" than anything that was on LES. I'm all for a return to heavier guitars from PJH.

Xp. Ant-semitism in Germany has not been stronger than in the neighbouring countries. But how can a highly civilized country follow a primitive squaller like h.? where did all the culture, the literature, the philosopy etc. go? Sorry i don't want to derail the thread.

― it's the distortion, stupid! (alex in mainhattan), Tuesday, February 2, 2016 2:42 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sadly not much has been written about hitler's rise to power or WWII, so if PJ Harvey lets us down with this new album, we may never know the answers to these questions

in her mannered recent work

Xposting, but "To Bring You My Love" is imo her most mannered record. I anything, I find that and "Stores" (maybe) her only mannered records, and sort of wish she would make more of them. The rest are either pretty raw or pretty weird and as awesome as they are often undersell her songwriting/playing, especially stuff like "White Chalk," "Is This Desire?" and "Uh Huh Her," not to mention her Parish albums. In fact, LES aside, I never listen to any of her albums but the first two and the two aforementioned "mannered" albums, even though I consider her one of my fave artists of all time.

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

that break at the end there actually makes it better. i wonder if its on the album like that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/i-gave-a-famous-rock-star-a-windshield-tour-of-dc--and-didnt-know-who-she-was/2016/03/18/8124ab28-e488-11e5-bc08-3e03a5b41910_story.html?postshare=2041458308548680&tid=ss_tw

That dude is my hero:

The father of my daughter’s best friend is Brendan Canty, the drummer for Fugazi, the D.C. hardcore band I knew nothing about until I Googled it. Brendan smiled patiently when I confessed my ignorance. He laughed when I told him I had spent three hours in a car with PJ Harvey without having any clue who she was.

How cool it would be, I thought, to document how my words evolved into her art.

Her manager was enthusiastic about the idea when I first contacted him. Her publicists, too, expressed interest. I asked whether Polly would share her notes with me.

No, a rep later said, and she also wouldn’t give me an interview. But Polly “does love the idea of you writing about your experience that day.”

i live pretty near to benning road. yay?

Surely 99% of the people in America (and a substantial chunk of the people in Britain) could spend three hours in a car with PJ Harvey without having any clue who she was?

I'm kinda hoping Mark Kozelek makes an album about listening to the songs on this album. "I was in my bedroom when i first heard the song "The Community of Hope" and I read the Washington Post story by the guy who drove Polly around and he didn't know who Fugazi was and that was kinda cool and it turns out they didn't build a Walmart there..."

FWIW The Wheel is great and this new one is even better.

Scott that's spot-on current-Koz sentence structure.

xpost

Yeah, both of the new songs are great. Very excited for this album.

Ok I love PJ. I love Mick. But this is one of the dumbest songs of all time. "Ok this is drug town" ?!???? Smh

the backup singers gave me chills

x-post--I guess PJ is quoting that Washington Post guy who drove her around

doesnt make it any less corny! shit man this is like as basic as it gets.

Virtually every PJ Harvey song is in character and this one is as well, she's articulating entry-level prejudices, sounding basic is kind of the point.

lol ok but like the music is basic af too. nothing interesting going on here + cringy bad lyrics. also theres something gross about rich british lady getting driven around a poor black neighborhood and then writing SRS SONG about it. not into it at all. terrible.

I'm with schwitterz on this.

I'd go as far as to say the song's about the driver and not the neighbourhood in an of itself.

she shoulda let me drive her around the east side instead. then the song could've been, "the dopest goodwill is here / and you only get robbed once a year."

(sike I woulda just been fangirling the whole time.)

I have trouble not liking this particular style of basic rock composition. Something nice and airy and unfussy about it.

lol xp

"ok now this is the arby's where james works ... he hooks me up with horsey sauce"

her song about her walk down main street with me yesterday would have been:

"Almost got into a fist fight with a Verizon salesman/The heroin zombies are out in force just like the birds and the first spring flowers/The pork belly taco at the Brass Buckle is insanely good/Fuck the bong store those guys suck/So many ambulances today..."

"and here's the brand new vape store. those guys blow real big clouds."

immediate reaction was pretty much the same as schwitterz' :/

i don't feel the need to love everything by people i love. i don't think i'll be buying this based on what i've heard. but that's okay!

they're gonna put a wal-mart heeeeere

A new album - soundtrack to All About Eve - out this Friday.

https://i.imgur.com/t6ptDYE.jpg

01 Becoming
02 Shimmer
03 The Sandman [ft. Gillian Anderson]
04 Waltz
05 Descending
06 Lieben
07 Ascending
08 Cadenza
09 The Moth [ft. Lily James]
10 Träume
11 Arpeggio Waltz
12 Change in C

Two tracks available here:
https://pitchfork.com/news/pj-harvey-shares-2-new-songs-from-all-about-eve-play-listen/

That's Phil Collins' daughter, right? If Phil could still play I would love to hear him on a PJ Harvey record.

Different people. Phil's daughter is Lily... Collins. This is the lead actress from Baby Driver.

Even so! Phil and PJ would be rad.