Frustrating

Dazed & Confused have done 20 different covers to celebrate being 20 years old (we presume? Something like that) and one of them is PJ Harvey. Supposedly another is Björk but we can't find that one. We could barely find the PJ one. Dazed, if you're reading this (unlikely but we never stop dreaming... *drifts off into daze* - no pun intended) please sort out your very confusing and uninformative website. It confuses us. We know that's probably the point, as it's not very cutting edge or trendy to be simple and easy to use, but c'mon now.

Thanks babesses.

Incendiary

PJ Harvey's videos for her latest album master work, Let England Shake, have been stunning and weird. This one, for the simply titled "England", portrays and explores the old, fraying edges of Our Magnificent Country: an England that is slowly rotting and stagnating, proudly, eccentrically, stewing in its remote and increasingly obsolete juices. Some of it is made up of a slideshow of still photographs, but some of it is made up of long, slow video, where the film's subjects move so gradually or slightly that you can't tell whether it is a photo or not. Mist obscures everything.

There are some cute dogs in it, too, if that didn't persuade you to watch.

More PJ Harvey being a Goddess...

There's something really very unsettling about all these PJ Harvey 'visuals'. If you've got the patience for them (a.k.a. you've never willingly listened to Justin Bieber of your own accord) then you should really indulge. This one is perhaps the most still and gloriously horrid of the bunch. If you're not creeped out by abandoned amusement parks, you might wanna check your pulse.

Dreamy

This coulda been directed by David Lynch, it's that slow-burning and eerie. We like, we approve, we love Ms. Harvey.

Stunning II

Photographer Seamus Murphy has made a video for a 'cut' from the new PJ Harvey album, "The Last Living Rose". Some of the shots are really beautiful. The song isn't shaking the fabric of our existence (!?) but it's not upsetting us either, so there's always that. Supposedly he's making visuals for every track on the album (very similar to what Tori did for Abnormally Attracted To Sin). Inneresting.

Loverly

PJ Harvey, who we love, but who we haven't had the chance to write about yet, cuz she hasn't released solo music during Shiny & New's reign of journalistic terror, is on the cusp of unleashing her 8th studio album, Let England Shake. It comes out on the 14th of February 2011 (the end of the world edges ever nearer-er) and in anticipation of it, here is a 'cut' - as some are wont to call it - from the work. Tis called "Written on the Forehead" and it's really charming and odd. Ms. Polly-Jean's voice sounds higher and frailer than usual (digital dickery?) and the music itself is far away from the ambitious, grungey, neo-post-quasi-Patti Smith thing she had going on previously. It sounds witchy, and like a lighter flipside to her last, dark, gothic, ghostly 2007 album, White Chalk.

Anyway we like it a lot, it has a nice crisp wintery feel, and hopefully you will, too.



Whilst we're here: