I have a spare ticket for thursday at 1pm,
anyone interested?

got a spare ticket for thursday(tomorrow) at 1pm,

*First 2 posts need admin approval, I approved and left both of your posts up so you can now post freely. H&HW

@kittyfiner: "Just heard an amazing improv sax solo being played and recorded as part of PJ Harvey's 'Recording in Progress'. A perfect moment in time!"; "heard an entire track played back (with sax solo) which is now going to play in my head until I'm able to hear it on the album! #PJHarvey".

Burak Cingi: "this was worth the pain. I witnessed the layering of a song called "The Age of the Dollar" - they layered the chorus, flute and trombone over prerecorded vocals. Thanks to @somersethouse for putting this on."

Seems like they recording each song within a space of day. )))

By the way, if most of the new songs are dealing with consequences of American government's actions all over the world, "Age of the Dollar" would be quite a suitable name for the album, don't you think? [Polly: "The whole world is becoming more and more based upon moneymaking, and less and less actually on supporting good quality of life for everybody", September 2011]

"Sight-Seeing" is also a pretty good name.

Age of the Dollar would be a great name.

I'm going on Saturday and am *very* excited!

And she said when LES came out that she thought of that album as the first of a trilogy so what we're seeing/hearing now was to be expected!

There's been awfully quiet in terms of reviews lately, so everyone who's going is owe an advanced story to us, hopeless poor devils.

"...what initially feels incomprehensible to the layperson – there is a lot of talk of tuning drums – suddenly emerges into a fully formed, and very beautiful, piece of music. The musicians seem excited about what they have accomplished and, somehow, we audience feel part of that experience too."

"At one point as I watched, Harvey commented, "I think it might just work, this crazy experiment". She was speaking of a specific moment in the act of creating the album – again to do with the drums, I think – but it feels like this comment could sum up the whole project. When our 45 minutes were up, the sound was abruptly cut off and the band, which we were by now totally tuned into, were muted, leaving us behind. There was an audible gasp of dismay from the audience: what will happen next? I guess we'll all just have to wait until the album is released to find out."

Polly: "The Tax Office was here since the late 18th Century, until fairly recently, and a range of different offices regulating public life, from The Stamp Office and The Navy Office to the registry of births, marriages and deaths... All that history will fuel me and help tap into a different level of consiousness."

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2015/january/pj-harvey-at-somerset-house

Polly about this whole project: "This makes me feel both very excited and very scared."

"What we see is that like all creative endeavours, recording an album is a wonderfully imprecise science: “that feels about right, doesn’t it?”, asks Polly when trying out the length of a reggae intro.

Polly herself cuts a diminutive figure, yet a powerful presence. Her speaking voice is almost teacherish in its intonation, and she talks in a West Country lilt sitting with one long, spidery leg draped over the other. Where this all tumbles down into what we know of PJ Harvey is in the crashing disparity between her apparent normality and her voice – the thing that’s made her PJ Harvey, and not Polly. Even just vocally sketching out ideas acapella, she sounds incredible, conveying oceans of emotion and a rawness that jars with the clinical setting."

http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/pj-harvey-recording

I really wonder what her new album MIGHT sound like. From what I've read so far, from forum members on here who have seen the exhibition so far, and from critics' reviews, and I have sort of felt a bit let down in terms of what the album will sound like. It sounds like a continuation of Let England Shake, especially in terms of instruments that are being used on the album. Don't get me wrong, I love Let England Shake. I think It's one of her best albums, and PJ Harvey is at her best when she experiments. But In my view, her reputation as an artist who doesn't repeat herself twice, may be at risk. I hope there will be at least some guitar on the album, and not just similar instruments that have been used before. It would be incredible if she just surprised everyone, by doing a similar song like any of the ones from "Dry" or "Rid of me", or even "Uh huh her", but It seems as if that PJ Harvey has gone. And I know PJ Harvey does what she want, and that she makes music that she wants to, I'm just saying that It doesn't sound as if I was expecting. I'm still going to buy the album when it is released, and I'll definitely try and buy tickets to the tour, and I'll love the album, this is just my personal view by the way!

From "Uncut" review: "The number of musicians is sparse, but the sound is dense and frictional; "Is This Desire?" might be the closest comparison, though it may also be a mistake to draw comparisons at this early stage."

And I think that if she felt like she's repeating herself, she wouldn't do it for as long as it takes to get something different. Plus, maybe the whole point of this experiment is to show the audience how different song could sound at the stage of recording and in the final album mix.

Here is a french article : http://www.lepoint.fr/culture/derriere- ... or=CS2-238
The article mentionned that the album won't be released before early 2016 That's way tooooo long!!

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Last Fm

I read it will be released same time as the book.

Even that's too long!! I was hoping for summer.
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"John Parish, long-time collaborator and producer, proposes a reggae rhythm for the song they are working on. His co-producer Flood gently steers things in another direction. His subtle command of the situation, given Harvey’s reputation as a woman with a very strong sense of what she wants, is impressive. He’s clearly very good at what he does, and knows how to conjure sounds that resonate with the movement of Polly’s creative soul.

They are working on the drum sound and Flood plugs the tom-tom mics into a gizmo that produces a dub-like reverb, transforming the sonorous thud into something at once cavernous and ethereal. The song begins to take root, grounded in the magic and mystery that Flood has coaxed out of a few electronic toys. “It’s a whole different universe!” Polly exclaims in wonder, taking up her guitar and starting to sing. A moment that zings – a visceral excitement animates the studio and is instantly transmitted as if by contagion through the glass. Flood responds by asking the engineer to “do a take”. In a flash, the genesis of the inspired soundscapes that graced her most recent album Let England Shake, a musical setting that continually challenged the clichés of rock while remaining totally appropriate to the feel of the songs, becomes crystal-clear. There is an openness about the recording process here that allows risk at every moment and encourages intuitive leaps and serendipity. Watching from behind the glass, the excitement is shared in a quasi-miraculous way. It hardly matters that we are only witnessing a brief moment: the essence is tangible."

http://www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/pj-harvey-recording-progress-artangel-somerset-house

@katathome1999: "PJ, "John, your foot's tapping really loud... it's coming down the microphone". John, "I've got the music man". #pjharvey @SomersetHouse"

Just came back from Somerset House.

When I arrived, they were recording the bass line for "A Line In The Sand". Polly was dressed in black and stood very quiet in the first 10 minutes. I was surprised that Polly gives Flood a lot of freedom. I was surprised because I always assumed that she'd be super bossy and quite a control freak about her projects, but that is not the important thing here.

After the bass line, they started recording the backing vocals. For 30 minutes all you could hear was all the blokes singing "oh, oh oh oh oh, ohhh, oh oh oh oh ohhhhh" which is the chorus for that song. In the end they were singing the backing vocals for lyrics like: "enough is enough, a line in the sand, 7 or 8 thousand people killed by hand" and "I saw people kill each other just to get there first".

The subject is quite the same as LES. I feel this time things will be more "Universal" and even more ambiguous. The song was catchy but I was not hugely surprised or amused by it, tbh. It is as catchy as TWTMM but with a jazzie, slightly heavier sound and the song ends in an abrupt way. Her voice was in her upper range again and I am convinced that she has been working in her upper register quite a lot. Her voice sounds much stronger in the high notes and, despite not being a fan of her "church-singing-voice", I reckon that what I heard, vocally, sounds better than LES.

Another thing from LES are the male backing vocals, a trick to give the songs that sense of community that we got in the last record. Polly must be completely allergic now to low voices. The blokes tried to sing the stuff in a lower register, as suggested by Flood. That was the only time I saw Polly interfering with the process: "No, stop, it's just too low" . I thought it sounded way better that way, but, she's the one in charge!

I'll be back there on the 4th of Feb.

Edit: John Parish, minutes before the end suggested that they should move to another song, he seemed quite unimpressed with it, lol.