The Garden, a PJ Harvey Discussion Site

Aways a bit reluctant to make too many judgements about a new record until I have lived with it for a while - new music excitement, especially with favourite artists can cloud my judgement.....But, I am very excited about this record after just a couple of listens - very excited.....

ok, i bought it, should arrive in less than a week. in the UK amazon, the album is already the number 1 best-seller of the "alternative and indie" section.
i'll take my time to plunge into its mysterious world.

I love it, very good album

I'm really enjoying it so far, deep and layered but still accessible enough and the songs stand up so far.

"The Nether-edge" is an absolute delight.

What to say?
From the LES lp, the best NON-PJ Harvey album: maybe, just one more Flood-Parish directed one.
"I was quite lost" she said:wow Polly, now you're definitely!
I love her from the beginning and forever so it will be, but "her", not the lost identity artist that now replaces her.
I strictly raccomand(it's into italian language) the reading of the italian music magazine july/2023: against all the osannas, it well explains why, as a musician, she seems to have abdicated to herself at all.

https://www.rockerilla.com/rockerilla-n ... io-agosto/

an tha wrote:Aways a bit reluctant to make too many judgements about a new record until I have lived with it for a while - new music excitement, especially with favourite artists can cloud my judgement.....But, I am very excited about this record after just a couple of listens - very excited.....

Same. I’m still waiting for my vinyl copy to arrive—next week, hopefully—but after a few digital listens I am really enjoying the new record. It feels like entering another world, moreso than any of her other albums (maybe with the exception of White Chalk—I think the two share strong DNA); it will probably take many more listens before the album unfolds itself for me fully. But even on the surface it’s beautiful and easily replayable.

The hazy, out of focus soundscapes they came up with for these songs are brilliant and evocative—they seem somehow both tangible and elusive at the same time. You zoom in on a sound and then it warps into something else and then it’s gone. There are perhaps a few moments on the album where I wish they had gone deeper with the modular synths, let their noise take over the track, but I understand and appreciate the restraint.

Polly’s vocals are consistently amazing, the singing during the second part of “Prayer at the Gate” sounds so raw but in a way we haven’t really heard her sing before (though the vocal nods to her previous works on “A Noiseless Noise” and the title track are great, too). Even when her voice stays in her more natural range, the phrasing is often surprising, like on “Seem an I”.

I’m pretty sure the LP won’t attract back people who lost interest in Polly’s music once she stopped rocking out almost 20 years ago, and I get why many fans who love her later work will find it incomprehensible due to the obscure, non-narrative lyrics written in a half-forgotten dialect, but I think those willing to dig into it will find it very rewarding. I am also very much looking forward to listening to the album on my headphones during a walk in the woods; feels like a good match.

Well I like it and that's all that matters

Also, there's an interesting interview with Michelle Henning who did the artwork, and it includes some alternative art.
https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/mi ... =intsocial

TheNightingale wrote:

an tha wrote:Aways a bit reluctant to make too many judgements about a new record until I have lived with it for a while - new music excitement, especially with favourite artists can cloud my judgement.....But, I am very excited about this record after just a couple of listens - very excited.....

Same. I’m still waiting for my vinyl copy to arrive—next week, hopefully—but after a few digital listens I am really enjoying the new record. It feels like entering another world, moreso than any of her other albums (maybe with the exception of White Chalk—I think the two share strong DNA); it will probably take many more listens before the album unfolds itself for me fully. But even on the surface it’s beautiful and easily replayable.

The hazy, out of focus soundscapes they came up with for these songs are brilliant and evocative—they seem somehow both tangible and elusive at the same time. You zoom in on a sound and then it warps into something else and then it’s gone. There are perhaps a few moments on the album where I wish they had gone deeper with the modular synths, let their noise take over the track, but I understand and appreciate the restraint.

Polly’s vocals are consistently amazing, the singing during the second part of “Prayer at the Gate” sounds so raw but in a way we haven’t really heard her sing before (though the vocal nods to her previous works on “A Noiseless Noise” and the title track are great, too). Even when her voice stays in her more natural range, the phrasing is often surprising, like on “Seem an I”.

I’m pretty sure the LP won’t attract back people who lost interest in Polly’s music once she stopped rocking out almost 20 years ago, and I get why many fans who love her later work will find it incomprehensible due to the obscure, non-narrative lyrics written in a half-forgotten dialect, but I think those willing to dig into it will find it very rewarding. I am also very much looking forward to listening to the album on my headphones during a walk in the woods; feels like a good match.

Really nicely put.

I feel White Chalk is the closest relative in the PJH back catalogue too. The other album that comes to mind that I am a big fan of is A Moon Shaped Pool by Radiohead.

As for the voice on this record - or should I say voices! - I feel the voice/s are the highlight, I like the sonics, I like te soundscapes and the arrangements, but for me the star of the record is the vocals.

What an astonishing piece of work - and amazing that after more than 30 years she can produce something which is so far from her previous output. I hear echoes of White Chalk, yes, but of other albums too, and they're nothing more than echoes. This is a definite departure, with its samples and subtle soundscapes, all bound together, I agree, by the voice and what she's doing with it. It's really powerful - but made so personal by the dialect and the Orlam mythology that I think it'll take a while for a listener to build their own relationship with each song, working out what it means to them rather than whatever it might mean to Polly. It's not obvious or easily accessible.

Does anyone other than me hear shades of Kylie Minogue in 'The Nether-Edge' and Patti Smith's 'Ghost Dance' in the title track?

Now that you mention it, yes I Inside the song I Old Year Dying does remind me of Ghost Dance a bit, especially the opening guitar.

Really enjoyed this. It's a vocal album with soundscapes of various instruments to flavor and color the songs. At less than 40 minutes the album for twelve songs is appropriate. She does have the propensity to sing a phrase over and over again "with the chalky children of evermore" throughout her career. For me it's annoying. A Child's Question, August is the blandest song on the album. Why it was the first single I have not a clue. It works in the suite of songs but as a stand alone single for me it doesn't. The album works for her age. Rocker Polly was finished in 2004 and I don't think she is coming back.

The start and the finish of the album is very good. It dips a bit in the middle around the first single. But when closing my eyes at night or walking through the Botanical Gardens by day, it does transport you to a different (sometimes weird, sometimes beautiful) world. It is not mainstream. PJ may not have many more albums and tours to give. I can't see her wanting to do this past 60. Enjoy what she still has to give to us disciples. If you can

ct4spinner wrote: I can't see her…

She has actually stated recently that she rediscovered a joy for music/songwriting that she hadn’t felt in a while to that level. On other occasions she’s said she’d always want to do things involving “making things” or “presenting things to people” or something of that nature, so I don’t think she would feel that way.

an tha wrote:I feel White Chalk is the closest relative in the PJH back catalogue too. The other album that comes to mind that I am a big fan of is A Moon Shaped Pool by Radiohead.

Right ? The piano progression in Autumn Term is really RH.

TheNightingale wrote:I get why many fans who love her later work will find it incomprehensible due to the obscure, non-narrative lyrics written in a half-forgotten dialect, but I think those willing to dig into it will find it very rewarding.

AineteEkaterini wrote: It's really powerful - but made so personal by the dialect and the Orlam mythology that I think it'll take a while for a listener to build their own relationship with each song, working out what it means to them rather than whatever it might mean to Polly. It's not obvious or easily accessible.

It's funny cause i think that's a very natural and easy thing to do for non english native speakers like me (are you?), i have connected with her music for many years before understanding anything she was saying.

One thing we should not do, lest we relish the thought of eating crow, is predict the end of her recording career or her touring days, as some have done.

How delightful it’s been to see her return, even if I don’t love this album.