The mysterious and amazing PJ Harvey will bring her unique blend of powerful alt-rock to Richmond as part of a limited national tour this Spring.
The mysterious and amazing PJ Harvey will bring her unique blend of powerful alt-rock to Richmond as part of a limited national tour this Spring.
Polly Jean Harvey’s musical resume is only surpassed by her musical talent. The British multi-instrumentalist started out as vocalist, guitarist and saxophone player in Automatic Dlamini back in 1988. In 91 she headed the PJ Harvey Trio with two LB releases before going solo in 1995. She’s won Mercury awards and released 9 studio albums in this effort and provided some incredible soundtracks to some really dark moments in many peoples lives.
Check out the classically dark and brooding “Down by the Water” below:
She’s gone on to earn dozens more award noms and helped pioneer the early/mid-90’s sound that is so popular with the kids these days.
The early 00s made room for more outstanding releases that we all probably take advantage of these days. Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, would become one of her most recognizable and accessible release and featured additional vocals from fellow Brit Thom Yorke of Radiohead.
She won another Mercury award on this record, but the ceremony happened on Sept. 11, 2001 – a notably dark day for the US. Harvey was in DC for both events and she told BBC News “Quite naturally I look back at that and only remember the events that were taking place across the world and to win the prize on that day – it didn’t have much importance in the grand scheme of things.”
More records were dropped between now and then and she hasn’t slowed down to this day. Earlier this year she dropped a new singled, “The Wheel,” off a new upcoming album, The Hope Six Demolition Project. Check it out below:
Life-long collaborator/producer Flood has returned to help with this full sounding record which The Chicago Tribune called “chamber-pop” and “powerful new protest music.”
“On her latest releases, Harvey expanded beyond the guitar-based attack of her early albums to build songs on keyboards (“White Chalk Hills” in 2007) and autoharp (“Let England Shake”),” wrote music critic Greg Kot. “The songs zero in on how the lower half of the 99 percent lives and juxtapose human suffering with gray monuments to bureaucratic power and wealth. Apocalyptic visions abound. “This is how the world will end,” she sings, amid a wasteland of broken glass, syringes and desperate graffiti messages in “The Ministry of Social Affairs.” An old blues song ushers in “The Ministry of Defence” before a saxophone spits out its revulsion: ‘A million beggars’ silhouettes near where the money changers sit by their locked glass cabinets.'”
Your chance to catch Harvey here in RVA happens 4/22 at The National. Tickets go on sale Friday, 12/9 – snag them then here.
