PJ Harvey releases a new album this month, her first since 2016’s Grammy-nominated ‘The Hope Six Demolition Project’. The album is produced by long-time collaborators Flood and John Parish and is her tenth studio album. After some mentoring from poet Don Paterson, PJH released a poetry book, Orlam in 2022 and this release sets some of this prose to music. The album follows the life of a young girl, Ira-Abel Rawles, as she navigates a thorny path from childhood to adolescence and each song is shared in 19th-century Dorset dialect or vernacular with a song for each of the twelve months.
The album opens with `Prayer at the Gate` with breathy vocals reflecting on what may be mortality or rebirth. The musical accompaniment is sparce and for me drew a desolate barren almost dystopic scene or landscape with an overwhelming fragility in the vocal delivery. There was a further stark beauty about `Autumn Term` which appeared to refer to childhood reminiscences. The vocals feel almost stretched at times over a rolling beat with soundbites of children`s voices in the background at times throughout.
`Lwonesome Tonight` is a rumination on schooldays, recognition of the countryside and possibly flirtations with the pop / rock star of the day, hence the title. A strummed guitar and gently tapped drum allow a platform for the alto like vocal to shine. We have sheep bleating at the opening to `Seem an I` with its repetitive hypnotic guitar loop and backing harmonies that give this track a retro texture.
`The Nether-edge has a ghost in the machine vibe at the beginning with an odd or experimental soundscape. It evolves in a much more rhythmic beat and reflects on the end of spring before closing with a kind of nursery rhyme. A strummed guitar leads us into and through `I Inside the Old Year` which seemed to be the most instantly accessible track. It may well reflect the dying season of autumn when the sun doesn`t shine so brightly and the days are shortening. It seems to almost shimmer at times throughout its brief existence.
`All Souls` has an almost hymnal texture as if sung within an ecclesiastical establishment and maintains a gentle reverence. There`s a fairly unnerving haunting quality to `A Child’s Question, August` which possibly alludes to an analogy between the death of summer and the impermanence of human existence.
`I Inside the Old I Dying` has a strummed guitar, brushed drum, shared questioning vocals and the sound of distant church bells with pensive lyrics that may well be interpreted as having a devout significance. There`s an eclectic magnetic drumbeat and distorted riff guiding us through `August` with dual vocals giving this number a perplexingly dystopian aura.
`A Child’s Question, July` had a kind of pagan like incarnation that brought to mind the folk horror movie `The Wicker Man`. The album concludes with `A Noiseless Noise` which begins fairly stripped back with a vocal and guitar chord riff and the sounds of the countryside before erupting into a real cacophony of torment or hostility. It takes a final curved ball in the last minute as it returns to a similar soundscape as it`s opening.
`I Inside the Old Year Dying` is a wonderfully absorbing and at times challenging listen but needs time to be fully absorbed. I don`t profess to understand the nuances of the language shared but to me it allows some leave to extract from the lyrical content what you want and interpret it as suits.
This is obviously a labour of love for this singer songwriter and musician who continues to push the envelope artistically and for me that has to be encouraged and admired.
Rating 9 /10
