http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/articles/pj-harvey-recording-in-progress-2015"
Chain of Keys": "A key so simple and bright, how can it feel so desperate?"
About recording of "
The Revolving Wheel" ("Three little children, I heard it was more like 28,000"):
"
The snare drums rattle and
the bass drum rolls as Harvey gets up to take seat by
the hurdy-gurdy. She taps her feet in time to
the beat, commanding
the room with
the smallest of movements. After a while drummer Kenrick Rowe takes off his headphones and says: “sorry, I’m just trying to get in
the right headspace” before he goes back to rolling
the same, wonderful beat cycle again and again. “Hopefully it will fit with
the track,” he adds. Producer
Flood –
the most animated man present - looks across
the room and says “If not, we’ll make
the track fit you.” Everyone around me smiles, we agree Rowe’s in one hell of a groove right now.
“Fuck” … “Can you come over here?” I can’t quite tell who is speaking but PJ Harvey moves towards
the back room where
the computer screen generates
the recorded waveforms - watching someone watch a visual representation of
the sound emerge feels apt somehow. She returns and they begin to play through a song, for
the most part it’s recorded but now they’re listening back with
the additional drums. I’ll never be sure if that “fuck” was a good thing, or a bad thing.
A deep burst of saxophone emerges as if from nowhere, I move around to a different window to see Mike Smith warming up for
the afternoon. A couple of melodies drift over
the song before its dark golden body struggles and splutters. Something seems to have gone wrong, Polly Jean goes over to investigate. “It’s really old,” says Smith. “But that’s what makes it so brilliant,” she replies. After a lot of indecipherable chatter it’s clear that
the Sax is broken, they discuss
the nearest place to get it fixed – there’s this place on Baker Street they’re going to try called Howarths. PJ mistakenly hears “Hogarths”, and everyone laughs at
the idea of taking a Saxophone to be repaired by a painter. Perhaps
the nature of recording inside an art gallery really has got to them. They accept defeat and move on."
"Back at
the window and Harvey looks like she’s getting ready to sing but barely a note escapes her mouth,
the vocals to this track have already been laid down. She takes off her jacket and rehearses a clapping rhythm with Alain Johannes. She can’t see us but she gives a knowing smile in our direction, hopefully finding it as surreal as we do that we’re about to witness a 5/10-minute clapping recording. Once they’ve got
the pattern down, they begin. She starts sitting down, then standing, then sitting - her leg constantly changes positions, it’s clear she’s not particularly comfortable.
The backing track winds down.
The clapping is quite intense. “
Mike, are you arms stronger than mine because mine are dropping off?!” She laughs,
the clapping is too much of a strain! She splits
the rhythm with Mike and they begin again.
Suddenly,
the music stops and we’re told that’s
the end. <...> Dawdling as much as is possible when being ushered from a room, we see
the song has finished and PJ Harvey is
rubbing her arms and bent double laughing."