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PostPosted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 10:30 pm 
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Kujjj wrote:
For example dry and rid of me are more like a 90 degree change. Still distinct from each other but not complete turnarounds. More like a progression than a transformation.

You are very right about it, but the thing that separates those albums from where she is standing right now is the fact that Dry/ROM were the beginning of her career, released like just 2 years apart, she was finding her own identity so I never felt too critical about it, I don't even think she was sticking to this plan to be inventive and non-repetitive the way she is nowadays. What we have now on the other edge of the timeline is a quite different scenario and, I have to admit, this is cruel to the artist coming from draconian fans like me, because when you are starting, anything you do is easily new and impressive simply because you are new, now she is sitting over almost 20 years of work to "haunt" her somehow. (correction, not almost but in fact over 20 years, I didn't even realize she has been around for almost 30 years jeez... :???: )
Kujjj wrote:
I think itd be a strange thing if she started singing about her washer now or her love life. . Just because both these albums have a political theme doesn't make them replicas. I mean, it's very telling just the album titles.

I agree with you, but I have no idea what else she could write about and that's the fascinating thing about Polly, she can easily surprise you (she was once someone ignorant on politics and here we are some 10 years later ...). The problem is, she is more infatuated about the subject and that is depriving her from making more... groundbreaking tunes, I would say, once again, because we have some 20 years of work behind her, but you are right also about the fact she doesn't need to make a 180 turnaround, I'm really grateful by the fact she is not a lazy artist and will never drop a bomb of an album, I trust her enough to release good music even if is not as jaw dropping as she can usually do.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 11:48 pm 
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Blackie wrote:
I would love it if instead of B-Sides she released a standalone EP with all of the songs that didn't make the album cut.


This. This is what I want. :D


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 12:25 am 
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head's_bullet wrote:
(she was once someone ignorant on politics and here we are some 10 years later ...)

In this "Uh Huh Her" period interview she said that she already tried to write songs about politics, but hasn't thought they were good enough to showcase them (03:14):



During "LES" interviews she was often saying how she was ALWAYS highly interested in politics.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 1:01 am 
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Kuk91 wrote:
head's_bullet wrote:
(she was once someone ignorant on politics and here we are some 10 years later ...)

In this "Uh Huh Her" period interview she said that she already tried to write songs about politics, but hasn't thought they were good enough to showcase them (03:14):



During "LES" interviews she was often saying how she was ALWAYS highly interested in politics.


there is this interview from the TBYML era or IDT, I don't remember exactly, where she said that she was ignorant on the matter, plain simple ignorant lol I think it was for Hot Press? I'll take a look and post it here for you, but I was trying to say is that is just surprising that she showed up suddenly out of the blue with her political material (especially after WC)


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 1:30 am 
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head's_bullet wrote:
there is this interview from the TBYML era or IDT, I don't remember exactly, where she said that she was ignorant on the matter, plain simple ignorant lol

I also remember how in some "Stories" interview she referred to herself as being "lost as a person" during both of these periods. )))


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 3:25 pm 
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"Civil War Correspondant" I guess is her first attempt to a war song, and she made it


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 3:32 pm 
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True. In some respects "Send His Love to Me" could also be about waiting "lover" from the war. And "A Ballad of the Soldier's Wife" - it's a cover version, but nonetheless she agreed to do it, which means she was interested in the subject. But all of them are more about "romantic" fleur of the war, and head's_bullet was talking specifically about politics and the "protest music", I believe.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 6:26 pm 
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Well the TBYML era was almost 10 years before uh huh her. A LOT of change happens between your 20's and 30's. And then now she's in her 40s and there is even more a change. Like she says, singing Rid Of Me or Legs or Dry would be a bit silly now. She's just done what many artists fail to do, mature. I think the most important thing is that she isn't trying to repeat her work from 20 years ago, trying to recapture her youth and looking like a fool. In many ways LES was a new start to her career, I suspect most her work from now on will be less focused on PJ and more on the outside world- wherever that takes her.


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 12:31 pm 
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Official video: https://www.clipyou.ru/video/97555/!!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/PJ-Harvey-video-premiere-the-wheel

Image

Seamus Murphy: "Polly and I wanted to initiate a project together working in places we thought interesting and relevant. We met through her seeing my photographs from Afghanistan, and I later showed her more work, including some from the war in Kosovo in the late 1990s. I had experience and contacts in both places and Polly had long held a fascination for Afghanistan and was caught up following the events in Kosovo when it was topical. Both had troubled histories and because of the news were familiar in name to everybody; the detail and nuance was maybe lacking or forgotten. I had returned to Kosovo in 2004 when the conflict erupted again, finding unresolved disputes and a deep frustration on every side with the pace and handling of events.

"An invitation came to both of us early in the summer of 2011. We were asked to attend a screening of the complete 12 Short Films I had made for the Let England Shake album, and to be part of a Q and A afterwards at the Dokufest in Prizren, southern Kosovo. Not something Polly would normally do, yet there was something inevitable about it all and it would get the project started. So we went.

"The song 'The Wheel' has the journey to Kosovo at its center. Who is to say what else has influenced and informed its creation? The sight of a revolving fairground wheel in Fushe Kosove/Kosovo Polje near the capital Pristina is the concrete reference point for the title. I can tell you its date—4th August 2011—from the piece of footage I made as we walked up the street to our parked car near the train station. It was a passing observation of a commonplace image, one of many that day. While Polly took notes I might have been more interested in something else happening across the street and not bothered to shoot or even have seen it. That day we were gathering material in a blind, optimistic endeavor; characteristic of the way we tend to work together. We had no idea if any of it would ever be seen, heard or would make sense.

"Was that sight alone the inspiration for the song? Without being told the stories of people who had suffered during the war, without visiting villages abandoned through ethnic cleansing and cycles of vengeance, without experiencing the different perceptions of people with shared histories, could the song have been written?

"I made a return trip to Kosovo in December 2015, armed this time with the knowledge of how the project had developed. In addition to Kosovo, there had been journeys to Afghanistan and Washington D.C. A book, The Hollow of the Hand, had been published of Polly’s poems and my photographs and a words/images/music launch on the stage of the Royal Festival Hall over two nights. A recording session turned art installation in Somerset House which I filmed. The album was mastered and on its way. Disparate elements finally coming together of a project that started with the premise of curiosity and interest.

"Making the film for 'The Wheel' involved a mix of footage from the first trip in 2011, rehearsals I shot of Polly in London and the most recent trip to Kosovo. The enormous refugee crisis in Europe had been news for months. I spent some time on the Greek and Macedonian borders, and in Serbia, before traveling into Kosovo. It was happening in and through territories associated with recent conflicts in Kosovo and the wider Balkans. The idea of cycles, wheels and repetition once again being all too apparent and necessary to make.

"We salute the life of Nesim Kryeziu (1938-2016) the wonderful man in the film performing a traditional dance with a glass of water on his head at a wedding in his village of Brezne in the Opoja region of Kosovo."


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 1:47 pm 
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 4:38 pm 
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I love it!!! So much great footage. Love the bits of Polly walking around and playing guitar in the car. The ending with the wheel no longer revolving is quite powerful.

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 6:01 pm 
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Pardon me for a trash movie reference, but those shots of chains remind me a great deal of "Hellraiser". )))

Speaking seriously, I like it more and more with each viewing.


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 8:49 pm 
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I'm loving it and the song has been stuck in my head for the whole day!
I love the bits where she picks the faded photo shaking the dust off of it and when she follows the people in the street.

By the way, I just don't care if the whole project will be too similar to the last album's, I'm really enjoying it and in my book she's allowed to "repeat herself" as much as she needs to if this is the result!


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 9:11 pm 
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.


Last edited by Blackie on Sat Apr 18, 2020 5:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 2:44 am 
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Blackie wrote:
If she was playing autoharp, writing in an "olde english" style about WW1 & England, and recording in a church, then I'd be concerned. Fortunately that is not the case.

Interesting as they were, it's refreshing to see her without the robe-like dresses and headdresses.

EDIT: Just watched the video. It's fantastic! I'm so glad PJ has continued her working relationship with Seamus. I think his cinematography has improved (I believe he'd only done still photography prior to LES, unless I'm mistaken). I'm glad there are no still photographs incorporated, I didn't find that to be a very successful technique in videos such as "Last Living Rose".



Exactly, the songs are way more blues based, way less folksy. None are about England or WW1. It was recorded in a completely new way unlike anything she's done before, and I know it surprised us all that the queen of privacy would do a public recording :). Her style changes every album, I like that. The style she's had so far is very modern and stylish for this era. Very different look than LES.

I too found the video an upgrade from many of LES videos, a lot of the scenes were really powerful and I think the video worked to enhance the song.


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