POLLy Jean Harvey - The PJ Harvey results thread

I found my minidisc copy of Dry&demos yesterday.

DRY DEMOS!!!

Oh man want to hear

I bought the original Dry vinyl + demos back in 1991. The demos are great - to me, much more satisfying than the Rid of Me demos. That Dry+demo release is probably one of the records I have that is worth most cash – I guess this is likely to change now. I'm more excited about the reissues to come later though. If they're all going to come out one by one, she's missing a trick – I would happily splash out £200 on a complete box set, but if there isn't going to be one, I'll just pick up what I don't already have on vinyl (Is This Desire? + Stories).

I have never heard the Dry demos, only the ones released as 4-track Demos, which was my introduction to learning how songs are made. I was 18 or 19 at the time and didn't know much about how music actually got written/recorded.

yeah would like an expanded 4-track Demos please (also a live Hope Six and/or all new)(haven't heard the soundtracks, are they good?)

Was "Easy" ever released on another album other than 4 track demos?

it is easily (lol) one of my favorites of her early songs

akm OTM IMHO. Even by the standards of its time, the original release of Dry was mastered at a curiously low volume.

I bought the original Dry vinyl + demos back in 1991. The demos are great - to me, much more satisfying than the Rid of Me demos. That Dry+demo release is probably one of the records I have that is worth most cash [...]

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 28 May 2020 18:41 (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah same here. 1992, I think actually. I checked Discogs a while back and it was selling for an average of £200

The idea of releasing demos for To Bring You My Love, Is This Desire, White Chalk, or Let England Shake makes me ridiculously excited for this reissue series.

I was weighing getting out of vinyl completely but a full set of PJH is making me rethink it.

I guess this is too early to tell, but I wonder if there will also be a mop up of the stray released tracks on these reissues?

Interesting to hear different perspectives, because I actually think "To Bring You My Love" is the one that sounds mastered at a curiously low volume (esp. coming from peak Flood), and that the fucking-with-you dynamics of "Rid of Me" does it no favors, and would love to hear both of *those* remixed/remastered. But "Dry" ... I played it for someone I know who had never heard it before, or really anything by her, and he said it reminded him of the way early Zeppelin is recorded, which is to say, awesome. The drums on "Dry" alone are some of my favorite recorded drums ever (another aspect of the trio hurt by the famed Albini Wall of Thud).

The remastering of Dry was done by Head who recorded/produced the original, so I hope he won't fuck with the sound too much.

The reissues have been in the works for quite a while, I remember John Parish posting pics of some test pressings approved by him on FB in 2013/2014.

I want a dumb nickname like Flood or Head

Dry sounds great, Rid of Me sounds bad. The sound of Rid of Me always reminds me of the similarly weedy & hard to enjoy sound John Zorn produced for Boredoms around the same time on Wow 2.

xpost don't forget Youth

Spot

Apparently Flood gained his nickname when he was a young tape op, because he regularly spilled cups of tea on the mixing desk.

Spot! Forgot Spot. Youth is new to me. Flood could be a surname too. Sorry for the derail.

1992, I think actually.

Oh yeah, no doubt you're right. This is kinda boring, but I thought 1991 cos I know I got it when I still lived in my mum's house, but I didn't move out till April 1992 so it could have been early that spring. That makes sense. It was sunny when I got the bus to Edinburgh on a Saturday morning, and sunny back with that record. I hadn't heard a note from her before then - just bought it based on the review, as I always did then.

Ha. It was March 1992, so just before your move. I also bought it on release day just on the strength of reviews.

Rid of Me sounds bad

otmfm

Well, that's the pro and con of many Albini productions: crank it and it *does* sounds like the band is in the room right in front of you. But sometimes you don't want the band right in front of you. I'm not sure that's what the studio is necessarily for. That's what live performances (and live recordings) are for! Albini prides himself on taking himself out of the mix (so to speak). He's just there to capture the moment in the most pure way possible and so, just a guy recording the band, doing their bidding, and so on. But the ironic result on "Rid of Me" is that he is more present and apparent than ever, which is why literally no one fails to mention the sound of the record (again, pro and con). Don't get me wrong, I love "Rid of Me," I just still think it was the wrong approach for a trio of such cool, unique musicians, and it's why despite liking all of the songs it's the only thing keeping me from listening to it as much as I otherwise would.

(I should also stress that I think the Albini approach does often work, and to the band's benefit, whether the Jesus Lizard or Low or Bedhead or Page/Plant.)

I dunno. I think that approach on Rid of Me makes it more intense than it would have been had it been recorded differently, and that intensity is kind of the point.

Can't really disagree, but I don't think we would have missed out on any intensity with a different approach. Intensity is kind of her thing!

He's just there to capture the moment in the most pure way possible and so, just a guy recording the band, doing their bidding, and so on. But the ironic result on "Rid of Me" is that he is more present and apparent than ever

Oh, I have no doubt it was her idea! I just find it distracting is all, since so few bands exploit dynamics in that way, period. But I'm also not a big fan of the guitar sounds on "Rid of Me," iirc. I should give it a fresh listen (if my family ever leaves the house, because they will tell me to turn it the fuck off, because see above).

I guess the 4-track Demos album presents those songs in a much less overwhelming arrangements? I don't understand how Rid of Me is anything but a powerful band reaching for the most visceral, slamming sound possible, and absolutely nailing it. I'm glad it exists and I'm glad it sounds nothing like 99% of my record collection.

I mean - the dynamics and drama are the *point* of those songs.

Trying to imagine Rid of Me with a more 1993 Alt-Rock identikit production, and it's not pretty in all the wrong ways.

rid of me, produced by butch vig

or Ross Robinson

Gross

Every record produced by Butch Vig would have been better without him, except perhaps for Garbage's first two albums.

Rid Of Me...produced by Mitchell Froom

Bells and whistles

I try to imagine Rid of Me produced by Flood all the time

Really hoping she finally releases a compilation of her incredible b-sides. "Memphis" could've been a hit.

^ I have been thinking about the B-sides as well. The press release mentions only demos being released as companion albums, and while with Dry and Rid of Me it's quite simple (Demonstration and 4-Track Demos have already been out since the early 90s, and there are like 3 B-sides from that period that wouldn't warrant a separate release anyway), things get a bit more complicated with later albums. For instance, the guitar and vocal tracks on "I Think I'm a Mother" are apparently taken from PJ's demo recording, similarly a bunch of tracks from Is This Desire? was just demos that were transferred into the studio and then the band worked on top of them. And of course she recorded most of Uh Huh Her (apart from the drums) by herself on an 8-track at home. There are probably more cases of her home recordings making their way onto the final albums.

So it seems in some cases the 'demos' may not be that different from the finished product, which makes me wonder if they'll include some B-sides on the future releases instead.

https://i.imgur.com/hY9kk6S.png

Rid of Me / 4-Track Demos reissues coming on August 21st.

ROM vinyl cutting by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering under the guidance of Steve Albini, 4TD cutting by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering under the guidance of John Parish.

White Chalk era From The Basement session up on YouTube. I think it’s my favourite album of hers. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnEQRzSLg1KI_7ECYQBI71h04XN3t3S40

To Bring You My Love and its demos coming September 11th.

https://i.imgur.com/jK1NpND.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXsKBb3Csgg

The demo of Down By The Water sounds so close to the album version! The QY20 drum machine and percussion are the only noticeable differences. I had no idea Polly had used the vocals from her home recording in the final cut. It's impressive that she basically already had the whole track down when she was demoing it in her bedroom -- albeit it makes the newly surfaced demo less interesting than one might have expected, as opposed to the Rid Of Me demos which shed new light on the songs.

I'm a little surprised that the second disk is just demos since the B-sides from this era are very very good

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

Still very excited for the demos.

If that "Down by the River" demo is any indication, I wonder if this was a situation where they roped in a ringer to produce (Flood, at the peak of his powers), tried to capture the qualities of the demos, but decided, eh, let's just use as much of those takes as we can.

The Dry Demos are out. I like them but most of them - except maybe Dress - miss the power of the final album. There is no sudden outburst of guitar noise like on Hair. There is not a lot of rhythm. Some of them are even fragile. An excellent production job which gave the album this raw brutal sound. On the other side it is very rewarding to listen to the demos where her voice is the main instrument.

https://media1.jpc.de/image/w600/front/0/0602508782473.jpg

Dress in the whole-band arrangement is prog-levels of overlapping rhythmic oddity, but still so blunt. Was surprised to hear bowed strings in the demo.

The To Bring You My Love demos are out and they're a much more fleshed-out effort than the Dry or Rid of Me demos indeed - filled with keyboards and drum machines, with pretty much whole arrangements worked out at the home recording stage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YG33LTqUCs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc8ircFYfr4

Oh boy, the artwork for those demos. The back photo is pretty nice too. I was in high school when I got 4-track demos and I crushed on her so hard based on the music and that album cover. She still sends me into a cloud of pubescent longing.

I think I got this and Guyville within a month of each other and together they blew my mind. I had never been exposed to complex female perspectives before in music. It took me a while to realize that Highway 61 was a cover!

The Dry vinyl reissue isn't too great. Lots of background noise in some songs. Supposedly the Euro pressing is better.