Yesterday the new PJ Harvey album came out here in the U.S. Here’s the cover image:
It came to me as a gift in the good ol’ fashion way, through a record store, at a retail price, by paying in cash. How quaint, you say? I still feel a twinge of excitement in handling a new album in my hands, and though CDs remain the weaker cousin to albums and their art, it’s still exciting to handle the cardboard packaging of White Chalk.
Suffice to say, on a first listen, reports of an altered audio landscape compared to previous PJ records prove to be true. The album is sparse and spare, with PJ’s vocals – lifted up a few notches into a falsetto range she has rarely used – at the front of the record. Producer Flood has concocted a stripped-down sound for her songs that, at first listen, really seems to work. John Parish – who collaborated previously with PJ on the great Dance Hall at Louse Point album – and Jim White, among others, are her collaborators.
Already a wikipedia page has been built around this album, from which I found out the following:
- Also on October 2, the second Inter-Korean Summit started in Pongyang, following the first in 2000.
- In 1996, an amendment to the Freedom of Information Act was passed that forced paper documents from government agencies to be available electronically.
- George “Spanky” McFarland was born in 1928.
On a related note:
On July 17, Mick Turner, 1/3 of the Dirty Three, of whom Jim White is a member, released his fourth solo album, Blue Trees, with help from the Tren Brothers – the Tren Brothers being Mick and Jim. Which is kind of confusing, but doesn’t detract from the looped, dramatic soundscapes Mick (and Jim) create.
