PJ Harvey : Classic or Dud

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?