Sometimes, she admits, it was overwhelming, all that death. PH: Oh, absolutely. PJ Harvey is going on tour but before you see her live check out what the artist has to say about interviews. "I've done my part, really," she says softly. Watch them both below. It took quite a long time to find out how to sing these songs. But she is almost as exacting when it comes to interviews. "I'm probably much more influenced by film-makers and painters than I am by other songwriters or poets," she says. Follow. It also left her free to experiment with her style of songwriting. Talks about her new tour and C'mon Billy video. Like White Chalk, Let England Shake has an ancient quality – in the words of one song, "the grey, damp filthiness of ages and battered books/ Fog rolling down behind the mountains/ And on the graveyards and dead sea captains." Elvis Costello is the subject of the latest 5-10-15-20 interview series over ... when talking about PJ Harvey. ... Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker. PJ Harvey Readies Expanded 'Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea' Reissue. But I also think people - for whatever reason - sometimes like to think that an experience a person is singing about actually happened to them. Apart from her short, inevitably public relationship with Nick Cave (they fell in love while filming the video to their 1996 duet "Henry Lee"), her private life is terra incognita. 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. Do you see this album as a love-letter to England, or is it much more complicated than that? Discussion includes talk about country farm life as well as artistic motive. The launch event for Lancaster Words, a three-day celebration of all things literary. "I think I went on a few different marches. For a long time I just sang a cappella. I'm inspired by the other great writers I go back to and read again and again, and think how did they do that? 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. PJ Harvey – Interview. On 9/11 (or "September 11, 2001" as she puts it with typical formality) she was on tour in Washington DC. At that point, she could have gone either way. I knew I didn't want the words to tip into becoming too dogmatic or self-important, and I wanted to leave them very open to interpretation. So that was an important part. The UK singer's new film, A Dog Called Money, examines the … With its depictions of warfare, though, it seems impossible that current events weren't a catalyst. 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. I certainly can get very angry about things I hear day to day, and shout at the radio, shout at the television, or actually feel sick or feel like weeping. So that's the link. "She's not, quite honestly, that interested in success. A diminutive figure swathed in black and sat on a vast settee, she's determined - as ever - not to give too much away. Hip Online - February 9, 2008. PJ Harvey's reissue of her 'Dry' demos show how she developed a unique vision for her career early on. "I think as a creative artist it's crucial to be open – to feel. I have to give it a lot of hard graft. We've come from all across the world, and descended from… you name it, we came from there. When, in 1992, she was promoting Dry, whose torrid, abstract expressions of female sexuality were new to indie-rock, she found herself fielding questions about when she lost her virginity. https://www.theguardian.com/music/video/2011/sep/08/pj-harvey-video "You have to be more disciplined, and you ultimately end up with a much stronger piece of work. So hopefully, it can cross [boundaries] and not just be particular to England. A poem like 'American Football' or 'The Disappeared'. James Joyce." She's not driven in any way by commercial imperatives. PH: I didn't, particularly, because this record travels through many different countries, and I wanted that. Equally I laugh out loud quite a lot and I love comedy. "I didn't want to tell people what to think or feel," she says. Polly Harvey: Well, it wasn't planned; I didn't set out that way, to record in the church. LolaUighta17166367. Is that the longest you've spent just on the words? PJ Harvey - PJ Harvey - PJ Harvey Interview. PH: I think probably, yes. Even the room feels carefully chosen. ", She knows so much about Gallipoli, the subject of at least three songs, that she could probably write a doctoral dissertation on the fiasco. [Laughs] Because I really didn't want to do it badly, because there's nothing worse than a bad song dealing with such things. Is it still frustrating when people try to read autobiographically into your work? Less prevalent, too, are the personal themes of loneliness and isolation, replaced with meditations on heritage, nationhood and patriotism. She laughs, and her laugh is wonderfully giddy and uncontrolled – it leaps out of her. Still, it's a surprising image: Polly Harvey on a demo, holding a placard. The album is a collage of so many different voices – sampled, quoted or alluded to – that Harvey's own point of view is lost in the fog, and deliberately so. Like you said, with a few exceptions, playwrights and film writers aren't actually in their own work. 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. I knew what I didn't want. "I'm not a removed person, no matter what I'm doing," she says. While writing Let England Shake, she dug out the war memorabilia of her own family: her great grandad's naval hatband, her grandfather's drum from the Home Guard, dozens of old photographs. ", The industry standard cycle of album-tour-album-tour doesn't apply. ABOVE: PJ HARVEY. You just close up all your edges and carry on about your day. Why did you decide to record this album in a church? She's long been cast as a reluctant interviewee, loathe to give away any detail which might pin down her work with a definitive interpretation or allow unfettered glimpses into her private life. Do you know his work? PH: I think there are many different levels to it. PJ Harvey has taken part in a rare interview with Andrew Marr for his BBC One show, as well as performing ‘The Community Of Hope’. And addressing the issues of the day. At 41, Harvey is revered for what she does not give away. When I finally found the voice, I knew how the music should be. Share on Facebook. It speaks to Harvey's fondness for old things. 46,311+ views. "Or indeed any of the songs on the record – how you can apply them to different situations. That's what I wanted to be heard – people who had been eyewitnesses through all different periods in history. February 15, 2011 • British singer-songwriter PJ Harvey watched hours of war footage before writing the songs for her eighth album, Let England Shake. Her next two (To Bring You My Love, Is This Desire?) 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. Do you think that will stop with Let England Shake? Entering her 30s, she seemed to have sanded down her edges and become comfortable, which, for all the album's charms, was a disappointment. 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. Toronto outdoor interview with Kim Hughes. Same day as Meet Ze Monsta MTV Studios 1995. - was that specifically inspired by current events? Last time I met her, in a pub in Abbotsbury, Dorset for 2007's White Chalk, it struck me that she answered questions the same way she poured our tea: elegantly, precisely, without spilling a drop. PH: Mmmm. You almost have to hand over your soul to that action. Her first two albums (Dry, Rid of Me) were raw and visceral. Just unbelievable. ", I wonder how she was affected by researching Let England Shake. The project takes a fresh look at some of her classic recordings, bringing them back to vinyl. "I certainly feel like I'm getting somewhere that I wanted to get to as a writer of words. She clutches her chest and laughs. She did get a record deal, but in a way she's been at art school ever since. Let England Shake was the product of "hundreds of pieces of writing: entirely finished poems and songs, entirely recorded songs". And I think of myself as somebody that continues to carry hope. It had to have hope running through it. PJ Harvey: Caught in the Act Interview by Susan Corrigan, i-D, September 1995 POLLY JEAN HARVEY IS AN ICONOCLAST WHOSE MUSIC INSPIRES ADULATION WHILE HER IMAGE INSPIRES SPECULATION. Yeah. 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. To find out more, click here. And violence - lots of violence - death and bloodshed. I suspect she just doesn't want to give away any information that might enable people to slap a label on her. 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. I can see what you're saying, but that wasn't the aim. Who could blame her for pulling up the drawbridge in later years? "If it takes 10 years then I would rather wait and know that I felt each piece was strong than feel that it was time to put something out but five pieces are a bit weak. "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. "It strikes me every time we play that song," she says. All the photographs and videos accompanying the new album are the work of the war photographer Seamus Murphy. '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. Descripción. "I think probably that desire is met in other areas – that immediate buzz you get from something taking off. It might be screaming like a lunatic, running fast down a hill. "Certain Neil Young songs like 'Southern Man' or 'Ohio', I'd go looking for the meaning behind them. Just simple things like learning that when I come to approach my work every day there's a certain opening that has to take place, and then when I finish my work for the day I give myself time to close that down again. When I mention that I often go on holiday in Dorset, where she was born and still lives, she excitedly rattles off some Harveyesque sightseeing recommendations: graveyards and ruins. She planned to go there, and to other first world war battlefields, but never got around to it. 'Burning in the ovens in world war two.' But I've given it a lot of study and I work very hard at it. Polly Jean "PJ" Harvey MBE (born 9 October 1969) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. She talks in eloquent, formal sentences, with nary an um or er, as if even one careless utterance might betray her. See more ideas about harvey, pj harvey, musician. "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. So I'm very disciplined. It might be driving really fast somewhere. 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. Interview. "I can't recall," she says, unconvincingly. Getting a record right has become more important to her than being prolific. 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'. As a wholly independent publication, we rely entirely on our ad bookings to keep The Quietus going. 4269. You learnt to play the piano to make White Chalk; how did you find a similar challenge this time? Along with the other sudden pressures of entering the music business, it precipitated a nervous breakdown. 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.". Because it was very important to get it to get the balance right. 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. "With songs I almost see the images, see the action, and then all I have to do is describe it. I think the endeavour is to keep finding a new way of saying something. The Observer PJ Harvey. PH: I can't say at the moment, because it's early stages. Stories was predominately about New York (where she lived for a while) and being in love. 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 … The songs they played were windows on the world beyond. "It wasn't a church I went to, but it's quite near my house and it's on a place I often walked through". I can't not finish a book. 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. She leans forward, freshly excited. I work every day, because I'm not someone who finds it easy. 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. PJ Harvey PJ Harvey - PJ Harvey Interview . 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. But I do feel at this stage of my life, it feels very important to give voice to things that really matter. I haven't drowned my daughter in a river, and I haven't crawled across the desert for 40 years either. It's almost like watching a scene from a film, and that's what I go about trying to catch in a song. View PJ Harvey interviews, articles and reviews from Rock's Backpages: The ultimate library of rock music writing and journalism. PJ Harvey's ongoing re-issue project reaches 'Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea' on February 26th.. But she is almost as exacting when it comes to interviews. I wanted a sense of moving through different times, different eras, different countries - for it to be a journey, not particularly routed anywhere. It's a wonderful feeling, and not one I'm used to – the feeling that people were hungry for this kind of work.". The project takes a fresh look at some of her classic recordings, bringing them back to vinyl. – a goofy joke in Cochran's Summertime Blues half a century ago and a bitter one now — an ocean away in New York the UN Security Council was debating what to do about the rebellion in Libya. EFFECTS The only personal detail I can remember extracting is her unexpected love of Wife Swap. I like to roll around laughing with tears streaming down my face. She is not cool so much as contained, with a hint of underground streams foaming away beneath the surface. And not trying to adopt any sort of role other than the narrator of the story. She talks in eloquent, formal sentences, with nary an um or er, as if even one careless utterance might betray her. Or playing music extremely loud and shouting.". Watch the video for Interview by PJ Harvey for free, and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists. She hoovered up information about myriad conflicts from books and museums. Even embracing a more narrative approach to her lyrics, most notably with To Bring You My Love, hasn't stopped over excitable critics trying to glean autobiographical meaning from her work. I didn't want to add more weight to the words, otherwise they would have just fallen down. were spooky and sensual. Pink Floyd, 'Money'. PJ Harvey Readies Expanded 'Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea' Reissue. There are also articles on MARK SANDMAN's MORPHINE, "cuddle-punk," Jello Biafra, and more. 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. The words are quite weighty on their own, and I knew I didn't want to add more weight to them. Where Dry and Rid of Me seemed brutally honest, To Bring You My Love feels theatrical, with each song representing a grand gesture. "Pinter leaves me speechless. I always have done. I didn't want dogmatism, I didn't want fingerpointing, I didn't want self-righteousness or any of that. 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. ", However charming and polite Harvey is, you can still come away from talking to her feeling that so much goes unsaid. ", What were the causes? If they've got dark hair it's even better"--perhaps she'd prefer Cream or the Doors. 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. I remember thinking about money a lot, and how this thing that meant so much was just a piece of paper." "There was so much going on. PH: Well, in the writing I knew there had to be a balance of light and shade. By. PH: [Laughs] It can be frustrating, yes. PJ Harvey: Well, the record is dealing with a lot of things that are happening in the world right now-- conflict, shifts in power, the change in society and in countries' relations to each other. PJ Harvey – Interview. 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. Also in the February edition: Mastodon, Franz Ferdinand, Judas Priest, Darren Hayman, The Damned, M Ward, Dan Deacon, Grandmaster Flash and more. I'm getting that feeling – just reaching the end of every poem, going 'Oh my God!'" But it really was stages in a process. I'm already writing, and the writing feels like a continuation at this stage, but by the time I've got the strongest words together it might go somewhere else. Hip Online - February 9, 2008. 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 WHATEVER Harvey says, it's always been difficult to extricate her from her own words. To keep an ambiguity about the nature of the voice, to keep it very pure, and very simple. Q&A with Polly Discusses playing piano, live performance and experimenting interview live sets 2007 part 4 download the full set . Sep 30, 2016 - Explore Todd Arita's board "Polly Jean Harvey Sexy!" "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.". 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. 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 … More SkavlanTwitter: http://twitter.com/skavlantvshowFacebook: http://facebook.com/skavlantalkshowInstagram: http://instagram.com/fredrikskavlan We don't tend to draw distinctions between artist and celebrity. She is dressed so chicly, all in black, nothing out of place, that I assume she's doing a photo shoot later, but no, it is just how she likes to present herself. I wrote the words first… for about two years, I did nothing but words. And particularly after the last four or five years, I've become much more interested in writing words. We've got a full PJ Harvey show to show you tomorrow, and ahead of that here's a classic interview from Melody Maker in 1993, taken from Rock's Backpages, the online home of music writing It's almost like being a sponge and you just have to absorb everything in order to have all of the goods to make something out of that. 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 … I was trying to find a voice that was not particularly of anything… just a voice, a narrator. https://www.discogs.com/PJ-Harvey-Interview-Disc-/release/12965715 With images of blood-sodden battlefields and fallen soldiers strewn throughout Let England Shake, her steadfast territorialism seems somewhat apt. PH: It's very natural for me to want to keep learning, and so I always want to be experimenting and going into new areas because it stimulates me as an artist, and I can uncover new things. 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. And then I just began to sing those words for a long time, until the melody revealed itself. EFFECTS ABOVE: PJ HARVEY. I'm reading John Burnside's poems at the moment. Harvey's shy persona is at odds with the figurehead who emerged in the early 90s at the forefront of the PJ Harvey trio with bassist Steve Vaughan and drummer Robert Ellis. She indicates a volume of Harold Pinter's poetry that she has brought with her. It's odd, because if you'd done even half the things you've mentioned in your songs, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be allowed out on the streets. So I was trying to find words and sing from a very human point of view, because that's something we all have in common. "Just that feeling of reading something profound and having your breath quite literally taken away by the end of a piece. There’s nobody like her.” When I last met her, she didn't even own a computer but she has relented for research purposes. 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. PJ Harvey has revealed a demo for “This Mess We’re In,” from her upcoming reissue of Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, out February 26th via UMe/Island.. Support tQ's work by becoming a subscriber and enjoy the benefits of bonus essays, podcasts and exclusively-commissioned new music. 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. This time she is warmer – literally so, because the fire in Kensington's Gore hotel is on full-blast despite the sunshine outside. 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 … 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]. 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