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I remember seeing PJ on The Tonight Show. She stood there with just a guitar and did “Rid of Me.” It was like seeing Howlin’ Wolf on Shindig! So great. And then I got the record [Rid of Me], and it was nowhere near as good, but it didn’t matter. For me, the record sounds like shit. That guy [Steve Albini] doesn’t know anything about production. He might be the second-worst producer of a great record after Jimmy Iovine, who totally fucked up [Bruce Springsteen’s] Darkness on the Edge of Town. It sounds like Bruce is in a fucking shoe box full of tissue paper. And that’s why 4-Track Demos is 20 times the version of the songs on the album, in terms of intensity and intent. What matters is her, what PJ is doing. There’s nobody like her.

Do you remember the first time you heard PJ Harvey? Annie Clark does.

"This was my introduction to PJ Harvey, on 120 Minutes on MTV. 120 Minutes was a show where they played rock music, hosted by Matt Pinfield.

"I saw this video in '98 or something, and I was just like, 'What the fuck is this? This is so cool. This scares me'."

"I went to the CD store the next day and I bought [Harvey's 1998 album Is This Desire?], and I bought [Harvey's 1995 album] To Bring You My Love, because the cover was like a fucked up Ophelia. I was like, 'What is this?'.

"At first I listened to Is This Desire? and I was like, 'I don't know, this scares me. There's something that really scares me here'. And then it became one of my absolute favourite records ever.

For Clark, the darkness of the music that came out of the UK in the late 90s was especially affecting.

"The late 90s in England, after the sunny side of the Britpop thing, it was just all this very narcotic music, like Portishead. Just this dark shit. It was really, really exciting.

"Anyway, this is a great song. PJ Harvey should be knighted, as far as I'm concerned."

PJ’s been a lifelong anchor. I remember when Dry came out, we listened to that record so much, so much, so much. We followed her pretty heavily to when she went through to Albini, that 4-track stuff she did for Rid Of Me. It’s so harsh and raw and personal. That record is just one of the great out-on-a-limb recordings by a very original artist. We did some shows with her three or four years back and she ended up being the sweetest person. Really just made us feel special. She gave us a shot in the arm. I remember walking away from those shows feeling so legitimate and inspired. She just treated us like friends and equals. Sometimes that’s all you need to do.

I saw St Vincent playing in Bexhill a few nights ago and a tour hiccup meant that her band didn’t have any of their gear so they had to do an impromptu acoustic set. To make the show extra special for anybody feeling deprived of electro-pyrotechnics Annie threw in a few exclusives, including starting her song Masseduction by playing the first verse and chorus of ‘This Is Love’ - so amazing I almost forgot to breathe! My wife caught some of it on video so I’ll see if I can get her to share it.

PJ Harvey
To me, the true mark of a great rhythm guitar player is not only their ability to play tight and have a great guitar sound, but to also be able to sing so well it's as if they weren't playing guitar at all. There is no better example of this than Polly Jean Harvey.

I'll never forget the first time I saw the "Man-Size" video on MTV. I never heard PJ Harvey before, but that's all it took. I was an instant fan and ran out and picked up her second album, Rid of Me, which is to this day one of my all time favorite albums ever made. She is such a talented musician and the band on that record were also monster players. The verses in "Man-Size" are in 11/8. Later in the song, the time signature changes to a loop of one bar of nie and one bar of seven. Eventually it goes back to 11/8. You try singing with passion and style while you and the band are playing in 11/8. I dare you. PJ Harvey made it look easy.

Before the Poison is back out on vinyl.
One of the records key collaborators is PJ Harvey, and Marianne recalls how one of their songs came about:
“Polly and I did the classic John and Paul thing, we sat at the table, she with her guitar, I with my notebook, and went at it eyeball to eyeball." They lived together and even partied together, to the apparent unease of the reclusive Harvey! One evening Marianne took her to dinner with some Parisian friends. "I flung poor Polly into a froggy dinner party. I don't think she enjoyed herself very much! She was very polite, but slightly tight-lipped when we came in afterwards. We sank into chairs, and I said, 'Never mind, Polly, you can write a song about it.' And bugger me, before I was awake, Miss P was up with her amp and guitar and what came out was ‘My Friends Have’.”
All four of Marianne’s albums on the Naive label are back out on special coloured vinyl pressings.