PJ Harvey scores first number one album Listen: PJ Harvey and Seamus Murphy interview with Miranda Sawyer "Because I hadn't really done that before. PJ Harvey and John Parish interview: Part two The second instalment of our exclusive video series sees Polly and John discuss the secrets behind their songwriting 4:04 "I think as a creative artist it's crucial to be open – to feel. Always pushing boundaries, singer-songwriter, poet, composer, and occasional artist PJ Harvey announced on Monday that her anticipated follow-up to Let England Shake (2011, winner of the Mercury Prize) will completely break the barrier between studio-produced LPs and live albums.Through a four week long living art exhibition “Recording in Progress,” Harvey, alongside … You learnt to play the piano to make White Chalk; how did you find a similar challenge this time? We don't tend to draw distinctions between artist and celebrity. Photograph: Seamus Murphy. Same day as Meet Ze Monsta MTV Studios 1995. I knew I wanted the overall sound to be quite uplifting, so the melodies had to be conducive to want to sing, and for other people to want to sing. Please whitelist our site in order to continue to access The Quietus. Polly Jean Harvey arrives fully formed as a songwriter on PJ Harvey's debut album, Dry.Borrowing its primitive attack from post-punk guitar rock and its form from the blues, Dry is a forceful collection of brutally emotional songs, highlighted by Harvey's deft lyricism and startling voice, as well as her trio's muscular sound. Support tQ's work by becoming a subscriber and enjoy the benefits of bonus essays, podcasts and exclusively-commissioned new music. The album is stained with blood throughout, whether it's the "Young men/ Hit with guns/ In the dirt" on 'In The Dark Places' or the lands "ploughed by tanks and feet" on 'The Glorious Land'. PJ Harvey and John Parish interview: Part two. Because we get up and perform them? It was little more in the forefront of my mind, because I needed to find a way to narrate the words, and do it well. PJ Harvey's ongoing re-issue project reaches 'Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea' on February 26th.. I knew what I didn't want. It's about war, and the damage it does to countries and to human bodies, but it doesn't yield anything as simplistic as a message. It's only now that it's come full circle and I'm using my voice again in a way that's tying everything together. 'Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea' was released 20 years ago, and broke new ground for the English songwriter, who scooped that year's Mercury Prize. ... Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker. Hip Online - February 9, 2008. The Mercury-winning Stories is her most commercially successful album to date and also her least favourite: an exercise in pop songcraft that left her unmoved. This time she is warmer – literally so, because the fire in Kensington's Gore hotel is on full-blast despite the sunshine outside. Share on Facebook. Why did you decide to record this album in a church? It's about national identity and conflict, initially inspired by Iraq and Afghanistan but roaming across centuries and continents, following the ribbons of blood that tie all wars together. The Observer PJ Harvey. Her subsequent record - 1995's To Bring You My Love - marked two enduring distinctions in her career: the genesis of working relationships with producer Flood, John Parish and Mick Harvey (all of whom helped to record Let England Shake), and a predilection for theatricality and constant aesthetic and musical reinvention. Her lyrical perfectionism is the chief reason why her new album, Let England Shake, has been widely hailed as her masterpiece – quite an achievement for someone 20 years and eight albums into her career, at a stage when most songwriters are leaning on their back catalogue. A probing into the meaning behind the words of her new album Let England Shake is easily deflected. "It would be a good time for me to remove myself from familiar surroundings. On 9/11 (or "September 11, 2001" as she puts it with typical formality) she was on tour in Washington DC. PJ Harvey's ongoing re-issue project reaches 'Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea' on February 26th.. If they've got dark hair it's even better"--perhaps she'd prefer Cream or the Doors. James Joyce." To find out more, click here. Discover releases, reviews, credits, songs, and more about PJ Harvey - Interview at Discogs. You almost have to hand over your soul to that action. "I knew the area very well," she answers simply. "Just that feeling of reading something profound and having your breath quite literally taken away by the end of a piece. None of her incarnations, though, were as startling as 2007's White Chalk, which was built around brittle piano (an instrument which Harvey learned to play for the record) and featured artwork in which she resembling the deathly spirit of a Victorian child. Or playing music extremely loud and shouting.". PJ Harvey has described wearing a veil, while filming on location in Afghanistan, as a "freeing experience". Tweet on Twitter ‘Uh Huh Her’ is the seventh album from PJ Harvey and the follow-up to the hugely successful ‘Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea’ which won the 2001 Mercury Music Prize. PJ Harvey is going on tour but before you see her live check out what the artist has to say about interviews. PJ Harvey interview + Let England Shake Skavlan 2011. And I think that it's only now that I've been writing for this period of years that I have the confidence to feel that I can begin to tackle these things in language. The person that was delivering the stories had to have the right voice, and the music containing that voice had to inhabit the right place in the stratosphere, if you like [laughs]. Q&A with Polly discusses the autoharp, thom yorke, josh homme and mark linkous 19.10.07 part 8 full set Q&A with Polly Discusses playing piano, live performance and experimenting interview live sets 2007 part 4 download the full set . To find out more, click here. Read the best writing on rock music here. Like White Chalk, it was recorded in Harvey's home county of Dorset, but the ghostly, gothic aesthetic befitting of a bleak rural wilderness is gone, and in its place is a warmer and fuller sound. The second instalment of our exclusive video series sees Polly and John discuss the secrets behind … She laughs, and her laugh is wonderfully giddy and uncontrolled – it leaps out of her. PH: Well, I find writing very difficult. One of the most startling things about White Chalk was the sound of your voice, which sounded infantilised, almost childlike. The line "What if I take my problem to the United Nations?" ", Even so, I wonder if she ever misses the jolting release of strapping on an electric guitar, turning it up loud, and bashing out a song in a couple of hours. It made me want to try and get close to this strange, mysterious thing that people can do with words. And addressing the issues of the day. ", Even though Harvey has never written about such issues before, she says she has always been politically engaged, and music was crucial to her education. Still, it's a surprising image: Polly Harvey on a demo, holding a placard. PH: Not so much the childlike quality. Maybe because we actually get up and perform our work… but then, that doesn't hold water either because often playwrights or film writers are within their plays and films. ", Listening to her talk about Let England Shake, it sounds less like a record than a novel or an art exhibition. I didn't want to add more weight to the words, otherwise they would have just fallen down. To paraphrase Will Rogers on Oklahoma weather, if you don’t like the new PJ Harvey album, just wait a while. PH: [Laughs] It can be frustrating, yes. In the same interview, Costello heaped praise on Harvey’s 4-Track Demos, which included eight demos from Rid Of Me, saying the former is “20 times the version of the songs on [Rid Of Me], in terms of intensity and intent.” He added: “What matters is her, what PJ is doing. - was that specifically inspired by current events? I was actually setting out to work in Berlin, as that was a city I was finding quite interesting at the time and wanted to work there. Unsurprisingly, she has not been seduced by such fripperies as Twitter. PJ Harvey talks to PopMatters about her haunting new album, learning piano by ear, limitless imagination, and why she decided to do a string of solo shows to bring White Chalk to her fans. Watch the video for Interview by PJ Harvey for free, and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists. But she is almost as exacting when it comes to interviews. Her next album, 2004's Uh Huh Her was a raggedy scrapbook of disparate ideas, less a coherent statement than an exercise in creative house-clearing, and with White Chalk she opened a whole new chapter. And it all ties together: the voice of the narrator, the music. "I've been writing songs for many years, and you become more accustomed to taking care of that – knowing how much to expose yourself, knowing how to pace yourself. A poem like 'American Football' or 'The Disappeared'. "I didn't want to tell people what to think or feel," she says. I'm inspired by the other great writers I go back to and read again and again, and think how did they do that? And particularly after the last four or five years, I've become much more interested in writing words. All the photographs and videos accompanying the new album are the work of the war photographer Seamus Murphy. This is the thing about Harvey. I didn't want dogmatism, I didn't want fingerpointing, I didn't want self-righteousness or any of that. It seems to be quite particular to songwriters, and I don't know why that is. WHATEVER Harvey says, it's always been difficult to extricate her from her own words. Miranda Sawyer is joined for a rare interview by PJ Harvey and Seamus Murphy to talk about their film A Dog Called Money, a uniquely intimate … Read the choicest cuts from the Quietus archive: reviews, features and opinion, PJ Harvey's Let England Shake: Track-By-Track Review, All She Ever Looked For: Kate Bush’s Never For Ever, 40 Years On, Crack Actor: PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love at 25, True Pairings: Tom Fleming's 13 Favourite Albums, Of Cakes & Men: Sleaford Mods Interviewed, A Kind Of Magic: Wardruna Teach Us To Laugh At Ourselves Again, More Than You Were Told: An Interview With SPAZA, Joyful Noise: An Interview With Pharaoh Overlord. PJ Harvey – Interview. "I can remember looking out of the hotel window and seeing armoured vehicles driving up the street and the Pentagon on fire, so of course everything took on an entirely different perspective. I think the endeavour is to keep finding a new way of saying something. Also in the February edition: Mastodon, Franz Ferdinand, Judas Priest, Darren Hayman, The Damned, M Ward, Dan Deacon, Grandmaster Flash and more. But no. PH: Yeah. I get angry, I shout at the TV, I feel sick', Polly Jean Harvey in March 2011. PJ Harvey has a walloping, 50-foot-tall legacy — musicially and emotionally raw when stadium angst was a boys club; opening the door for everyone from Alanis to Karen O. "Had she not got a record deal she would have gone on to do fine art at St Martins. 3 years ago | 13 views. "I think I went on a few different marches. There seems to be so much to do, and I just want to keep uncovering things. Yeah. Do you think this is your least introspective record? So that's the link. We've come from all across the world, and descended from… you name it, we came from there. Sometimes, she admits, it was overwhelming, all that death. 1. For the majority of her live appearances, PJ Harvey tends to use a Vox AC30 and an Orange Retro 50 head into Marshall 4×12 cabinets, creating an immensely saturated tone. She's not driven in any way by commercial imperatives. Toronto outdoor interview with Kim Hughes. It can be very frustrating, particularly when it seems almost preposterous that it could be autobiographical. PJ Harvey PJ Harvey - PJ Harvey Interview . For a long time I just sang a cappella. Although the route would be the sound; it's a very unusual sound that goes throughout the whole record in the telling of the narratives and the stories. 'England', for example, espouses a love and hate relationship with her country, claiming "I love England" one moment and bemoaning its "bitter taste" the next. She maintains her sense of mystery, which serves her art but leaves anyone who loves that art wanting to know more about the person who creates it. I didn't want anything to be anchored or tied down. More a purity of voice - not trying to adopt anything, particularly. ", She already has several competing ideas for her next album, but you probably shouldn't hold your breath waiting for it. "I went within my mind but I'd still like to go there and see if the place I went in my mind is how it is.". So if there's an open book like the internet, there's a temptation to sit there and learn everything. Some don't. PH: Oh, absolutely. were spooky and sensual. Now at Global Texan Chronicles. And then I just began to sing those words for a long time, until the melody revealed itself. ", However charming and polite Harvey is, you can still come away from talking to her feeling that so much goes unsaid. For a list of stockists, visit the Stool Pigeon website Pink Floyd, 'Money'. The songs they played were windows on the world beyond. "She comes from an art school ethos," says Paul McGuinness, who has been managing Harvey since she supported his other clients, U2, in 1993. With its depictions of warfare, though, it seems impossible that current events weren't a catalyst. "She's not, quite honestly, that interested in success. She planned to go there, and to other first world war battlefields, but never got around to it. She flew in to visit some friends in Berlin the day the wall came down in 1989. "I wanted to remain a narrator." "I literally left school and went straight into music via art college for a year, and I've been so involved in my job of writing songs that the more actively involved part became channelled into standing on the stage and saying things that way. You just close up all your edges and carry on about your day. "Pinter leaves me speechless. "I'm the type of person that if there's something I have access to I want to know everything it has to offer. So it was a difficult process, particularly when writing this record, because I feel like I've just begun on this whole different way of using words and addressing different issues. After releasing her eighth LP, White Chalk, and launching a two-date-only U.S. tour, PJ Harvey talks to Pitchfork about touring alone, playing piano, and writing scary songs. And in order to do that, it's good to put oneself in unfamiliar situations. "I've always been very visceral in that I feel things very deeply. Follow. But whatever I do - and I've always been like this, and I am as a visual artist as well - I want to learn and see how much I can uncover in the short life-span that we seem to have. "How it … Do you see this album as a love-letter to England, or is it much more complicated than that? olly Jean Harvey chooses her words carefully. She has done such a good job recently of presenting herself as a patient craftswoman, chipping away at words the way her mother chips away at stone, that you could be mistaken for thinking she had become emotionally cool, but it's just that she doesn't advertise that side of her personality anymore, and for good reason. As well as the unparalleled joy of keeping the publication alive, you'll receive benefits including exclusive editorial, podcasts, and specially-commissioned music by some of our favourite artists. Who could blame her for pulling up the drawbridge in later years? "You have to be more disciplined, and you ultimately end up with a much stronger piece of work. Polly Jean "PJ" Harvey MBE (born 9 October 1969) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. Does something about working in Dorset make you reconnect to childhood? There’s nobody like her.” People don't allow the metaphor, the imagery, all the things that you work with as a writer… standing completely outside, as the narrator of a story. Polly Harvey: Well, it wasn't planned; I didn't set out that way, to record in the church. With images of blood-sodden battlefields and fallen soldiers strewn throughout Let England Shake, her steadfast territorialism seems somewhat apt. So that was an important part. LESSER SINGERS HAVE CRUMBLED UNDER SUCH SCRUTINY. Her personal life is strictly taboo. English singer-songwriter PJ Harvey rarely gives interviews, and the rollout of her latest album The Hope Six Demolition Project hasn’t been any different. But it's very much today; I wanted to deal with the world that we live in now. It's a wonderful feeling, and not one I'm used to – the feeling that people were hungry for this kind of work.". Complete your PJ Harvey collection. See more ideas about harvey, pj harvey, musician. Perennially disgruntled by critics who took her songs for glorified diary entries, she embraced a more obviously literary approach, setting aside her guitar to pick out sparse, beautiful melodies on unfamiliar instruments such as the piano and autoharp. She leans forward, freshly excited. Some may just be poems or short prose, some may become songs. INTERVIEW: Seamus Murphy on his travels with PJ Harvey December 18, 2020 December 18, 2020 John Soltes 0 Comments Film Forum , PJ Harvey , Seamus Murphy Photo: PJ Harvey, the acclaimed singer-songwriter, is the subject of the new documentary PJ Harvey: A Dog Called Money by filmmaker Seamus Murphy. She indicates a volume of Harold Pinter's poetry that she has brought with her. PJ Harvey & John Parish; John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey; merge all; Consumer Guide Reviews: Dry [Indigo, 1992] Since she doesn't fancy comparisons to Sinead or Kate Bush--"I'm like anyone as long as they're female. Interview. [Laughs] Because I really didn't want to do it badly, because there's nothing worse than a bad song dealing with such things. Wood-panelled, lined with stern oil paintings and ranks of unread books, it's so remote from the 21st century that even the mineral water bottles on the table between us seem anachronistic, and my Dictaphone looks like something that fell off a spaceship. I was trying to find a voice that was not particularly of anything… just a voice, a narrator. And love, which I also think runs through it. Today is no exception. Let England Shake was the product of "hundreds of pieces of writing: entirely finished poems and songs, entirely recorded songs". Certainly that night at the Troxy it had a different meaning because of what was happening at the time, and I'm sure it did for many people in the room as well.". I knew that before I even began; that was at the forefront of my mind the whole time. "There wouldn't be any point in me trying to persuade her to take the steps that I thought were necessary to get her into football stadiums," says Paul McGuinness. You said earlier that you spent longer on the words for this record than any others. It's almost like watching a scene from a film, and that's what I go about trying to catch in a song. We all have this sense of love and hate with the nation that we're born into and live with. In the studio, Harvey uses various Marshall, Fender, Mesa-Boogie and Baldwin amps, as listed in an interview that appears on her website. A lot of Dylan's work, especially the early 60s. It might be driving really fast somewhere. Is that the longest you've spent just on the words? PJ Harvey's reissue of her 'Dry' demos show how she developed a unique vision for her career early on. This is an edited extract of an interview with John Parish and PJ Harvey from the current issue of The Stool Pigeon newspaper. PJ Harvey Interview Q&A. Following the release of their skin-flaying debut Dry in 1992 and the even more abrasive Rid Of Me the following year, the trio disbanded and Harvey continued working under the same moniker. Harvey still likes to draw and paint, recently contributing illustrations to Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope: All-Story magazine, and owns paintings by Christopher T Wood and Alasdair Wallace. PH: Yes, yes. 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