Fluxblog
October 11th, 2007 12:16pm

It Never Leaves My Mind


PJ Harvey @ Beacon Theater 10/10/2007
To Bring You My Love # / Send His Love To Me # / When Under Ether % / The Devil %+ / White Chalk %~ / Man Size # / Angelene #* / My Beautiful Leah *&! / Nina In Ecstasy & / Electric Light & / Snake # / Shame # / Big Exit # / Down By The Water @* / Grow Grow Grow @ / The Mountain % / Silence % // Rid Of Me # / Water # / The Piano ^/ The Desperate Kingdom Of Love ^ (# = electric guitar, % = piano, @ = autoharp, ^ = acoustic guitar, * = drum machine, & = synthesizer, ! = ride cymbal, ~ = harmonica, + = metronome)

PJ Harvey “Nina In Ecstasy” – I left PJ Harvey’s concert in a state of awe, completely blown away by what may have been the single best show I’ve ever witnessed in terms of vocal performance. (I’ve actually seen her play once before; I don’t recall being nearly as impressed.) She was on stage alone, dressed in a gown similar to the one she wore on the cover of White Chalk. She moved from one instrument to another throughout the evening, occasionally accompanied by a mechanical rhythm that only emphasized the spareness of her live arrangements. In most cases, there wasn’t much of a difference — Harvey has always favored skeletal simplicity on her records, and she hardly needed a rhythm section to pull off the severe intensity of “Man Size” and “Snake.” Her setlist pulled a song or three from each of her major works and quietly made a compelling case for her consistency, stylistic range, and ability to expertly tailor her voice to the character of each piece. Harvey’s voice is an astounding thing, both in terms of technical prowess and expressive power. She sang and played every selection with incredible precision, but her performance never seemed even slightly rote. In fact, I cannot recall the last time I saw a performer so fully committed to inhabiting their work on stage.

PJ Harvey “My Beautiful Leah” – The lurching, relentlessly grim “My Beautiful Leah” was perhaps the most dramatic selection of the concert, and not simply because it allowed for some theatrical flair when the song called for her to bash a ride cymbal for a few measures. Even more so than on the album recording, Harvey conveyed the heartbroken regret of the narrator as her music expressed the flat hopelessness of the severely depressed title character. Harvey’s voice struggles against the pull of the Leah’s nihilistic misery, seduced by her beauty, and perhaps also the purity of her sadness. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

PJ Harvey “Grow Grow Grow” – Joshua Klein’s lukewarm review of White Chalk on Pitchfork has been bugging me for the past few weeks, not simply because he horribly underrated one of the year’s finest records (sadly, this is to be expected in a year in which Pitchfork has consistently given female artists aside from M.I.A., Feist, and Joanna Newsom lackluster, unexcited, clueless, or needlessly harsh notices), but because his major point comes down to: “You might not be in the mood for it all the time.” Really, Joshua? You mean, like every piece of art ever?

Of course, this is a time when many music critics are seemingly unwilling to engage with art, and instead attempt to act as a twisted sort of consumer advocate. Is it a shock that a majority of records acclaimed in internet circles are most often some form of innocuous, neutral music that does not pose any sort of aesthetic challenge, and recedes into the background so as not to distract the listener from other activities? White Chalk is a mood piece for sure, but it’s also a careful, nuanced work that rewards close listening. Klein may be correct that it is not suitable as all-purpose background noise, but he fails to realize that this is in fact an indication that the album has succeeded on its own terms. The point of White Chalk is to transport the listener into the world of Harvey’s characters, and it is remarkably effective in doing so. It’s meant to be a window into other lives, not yet another mirror to gaze upon ourselves, or a blanket of ambient sound to keep us from feeling uncomfortable in silence.

Also: Remember a few months ago when I interviewed Rob Sheffield, and we were talking about how people used to take 90 minute cassettes and pair two complementary albums for each side? The technology may be outmoded, but please consider this pairing: White Chalk and In Rainbows. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: “I know I’m biased, but really, has anyone done more for Blues music than PJ Harvey? I’m not talking wack-ass Eric Clapton retreads, I’m talking updating the sound of lamentation so that it sounds powerful and alive. She is so thrillingly in the moment of her songs that it can be a little off-putting to people not used to such passion in their music. Or if they are, it’s a different sort of passion, the flowery kind that’s more about me! me! me! than trying to tell a story. She makes you feel her belief. When she sang “You know he’s gonna be there…” and stretched the last vowels into a dry death rattle, it wasn’t pretty, it was captivating.”

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