PJ Harvey - The Hope Six Demolition Project (2016)

She's kind of like Neil Young in that respect...you go see her, and you gonna see the show she wants to play. I can understand the way and why the material has been selected. The band she's got is more or less the band that was heavily involved in the creation of the last two albums, so of course that's the stuff they'll play and can sustain a set list alongside a few older songs (which really aren't rearranged the way they could have been for this band--imagine a "50ft. Queenie" with everybody doing percussion!). It's remarkably brassy/ballsy that this is how she's doing her first large-scale US tour in yoinks.

I’d also like to add that the White Chalk material—she’s been playing “When Under Ether,” “The Devil,” “To Talk to You,” and now apparently “Dear Darkness” and “White Chalk,” too—fits very well with the current show, despite the lyrical content of these songs being more introspective and not political/historiographical/journalistic.

This might be just my underdeveloped theory but . . . people often point out Let England Shake as a major sea change in her career (where the focus shifted from inspecting the personal to observing the world around her), whereas I think that the bigger step was her move from blues- to folk-inspired songwriting, which seems to have occurred around 2005-2006, when she was working on White Chalk—although some might say that songs like “Pocket Knife” or “The Desperate Kingdom of Love” from Uh Huh Her had foreshadowed it.

This is of course very simplifying, it’s not like every pre-2006 PJ song has its roots in blues and every post-2006 one in folk, but her vocal delivery definitely changed—and I’m not only talking about her singing in a higher register, but also about enunciation/articulation. Gone were the dirty riffs and rhythmic guitar playing in favour of strummed chords; the vocal melodies became simpler, the arrangements more acoustic, even her lyrics bear more resemblance to (or even directly reference) old folk songs. I guess that’s why the inward-looking White Chalk tracks fit nicely among the newer ones—they seem to come from the same musical family.

(I hope I make sense. Sometimes it’s tricky to put my thoughts into English words, and I’ve had two pints, so forgive me if it reads as gibberish and carry on.)

I agree with that - White Chalk is where she started her current approach, which is an approach I like as much as the first two records. Everything else in the middle is hit-or-miss for me.

This has been posted before, but I would KILL to see her play a version of Grow, Grow, Grow like this. The fact that she does whatever she wants and always has is what makes me respect her immensely though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uctrQBJSY8

http://www.undertheradarmag.com/news/pj_harvey_and_harry_escott_share_new_cover_of_english_folk_standard_an_acre/

aaaaaaaaaaamazing
her voice! the song!

i like the arrangement a lot too

it's also super long!
long live pj harvey

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

anybody have any idea which pj song this is referencing at 3.56 - sounds like something off TBYML

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

That's beautiful, An Acre of Land, and pretty much a perfect fit for that movie I'd imagine.

A new BBC4 radio documentary follows Polly around as she's composing music for a theatre adaptation of All About Eve. Lovely to see her creative process so intimately and up close (including her recording demos at home on a Tascam 4-track). She doesn't seem to be interested in being a alt-rock star/performer anymore, too — it seems that the last tour was kind of goodbye to that part of her life.

Also, excerpts of gorgeous music throughout (and I don't only mean the two songs that are the main focus of the documentary, but also about the instrumental and ambient pieces from all the different plays she's contributed to); makes me wish they'd release an anthology of her theatre scores.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0002g8h

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.