POLLy Jean Harvey - The PJ Harvey results thread

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.

Sorry to hear that about the reissue.

I had thought about getting CD versions of the first two albums, which I own on vinyl. I haven't seen them yet anywhere.

The Dry vinyl reissue isn't too great.

Yeah, the US one is kind of crap. The Rid of Me one is much better. Not sure if I'm gonna get any of the rest of what's to come.

I bought the To Bring You My Love reissue yesterday, but haven't had the chance to listen to it yet.

Just FYI I have the European pressing of the Dry reissue and it sounds great, no problems whatsoever.

listening on streaming to the Bring You My Love demos (bummer about the vinyl was just about to order it glad I clicked here first)

but wow, I love this, she's the master of demos

Finally got the chance to listen to the TBYML vinyl and it's excellent.

Stories.. demos etc

https://pjharvey.kontraband.store/products/stories-from-the-city-stories-from-the-sea-demos-lp

I'm happy to get the chance to have all the albums on vinyl (just need this and Uh Huh Her now), but I'm not forking out for any more of the demo albums. The To Bring You My Love demos have minor differences in arrangements, but in terms of song structure, composition, phrasing etc they are identical bar by bar to the final release. I can't imagine this will change with later releases. Is she going to put out Uh Huh Her and White Chalk demo albums? They already sound like demos! (Don't get me wrong, I like them, but still...)

It’d be nice if there were CD versions of these reissues.

There's a CD edition of the just-released Is This Desire? Demos set--I just ordered a copy from my local shop; am really into the drum machine backings on pretty much this whole thing, and am glad that it's (at the time of this post) all up on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQxxfsns0ho

Think he might have meant CD reissues of the actual albums.

Her B-Sides, Rarities & Demos is fantastic in a way that (to me) the LPs haven’t been in a minute. Loving this.

Yeah, it's a great compilation. There are a few bizarre choices and weird omissions―but that's to be expected with such big retrospectives―and the third CD (or LPs 5 & 6) is a bit of a mixed bag as it features everything from her early/pre-90s songs, soundtrack work, unreleased demos, to a Nick Cave cover and some one-off singles, but the first two parts are an amazing, surprisingly cohesive listen.