- he would take a refusenik kind of approach.
- it’s ugly music, but ugly in a good way. it makes me squirm in places but the reason it makes me squirm is because it is quite close to the bone. some of the vocals are literally hysterical, mad, crazy. 1
- i think that is a getting older thing, i sense more that i won't tolerate having just OK music around me. it has to be life-changing or I don't particularly want to hear it. i've probably narrowed down my listening to other people's work to just what stimulates me. 1
- think about polly harvey too long and you start reeling. she's a mass, a mess of contradictions. when it comes to the gender map of 90s rock, she refuses to be tied down or placed. 1
- oh, america says the dancer with the following steps and oh, england says the dancer with the leading steps in the glorious land
- she took blues-punk to feminist and albini-an extremes. she one-upped the comparatively diaristic fantasies of liz phair by demanding that two of history’s leading men, casanova and robert deniro, bend over for two different prostate-pleasing reasons. she made more convincing trip-hop than madonna, and better latter-day patti smith than actual latter-day patti smith. 1
- the words that maketh murder is scrupolosity wrapped up in world war one imaginery and saxophones
- "the majority of the hope six demolition project lacks a clear stance beyond what has been readily called “poverty tourism,” says consequence of the sound, it calls it 'an awkward blend of journalism and rock', and yet
- in the great "white chalk," she wanders the hills of her dorset, england, home where her ancestors are buried, writing their story on her feet as she walks. harvey ends the song moaning, "scratch my palms/there's blood on my hands" — and it sounds like the piano keys have turned into skeleton bones.
- white chalk as an album is both harvey's most radical self-correction to date 1 as it is pj harvey's cloistered victorian gloom goth phase: 'vocally, she sang in a much higher register than usual, at a pitch outside her normal range and "howled about being possessed by demon lovers and ghosts"', as if harvey's a hysteric singing herself to sleep in the attic. 2
- where sufjan stevens or fiona apple do stitch my chest up to mend and heal, pj harvey rips my person wide open to trust, explore and live elevated by casual mania in possibilities again
may 3 2015 ∞
may 7 2016 +