Thirteen years since their last collaboration, Dance Hall at Louse Point, PJ Harvey & John Parish join forces once again to bring us their 2009 release, A Woman A Man Walked By. Manned by Parish musically, the record is ostentatiously minimalistic in its presentation, and only gains an even more heightened form of pretentious character once PJ Harvey’s voice and words blanket the skeletal tracks. PJ’s voice drains through each ditty like the thoughts of a wood nymph’s afternoon daydream and although weak in design, surmounts to be quite substantial in thought. There’s an overwhelming feeling of insincerity at times as Harvey seems almost removed from the glue of the track, running perpetually parallel to Parish and never perpendicularly joining his vision. A theory behind this detachment could be the fact that Parish handed a completed set of songs to Harvey and asked her to put words to his madness, what seemingly forces the audience’s ears digest two separate emotions throughout the record. Although truth be told the manic duality of the effort creates a dark distilled air of a misanthropic induced tension, that makes the listen a dose of continuously welcomed brutish introspection. Ultimately the components of this record that drive one to cringe and clench their fists, whether for pain & sorrow or anger & strife, are the same components that tenure a cause for a bizarre warmth when listening to its devilish lyrics and back alley melodies. There’s love & hate in the eyes of this piece of wax… Like pricking yourself to see if you still bleed, this record will remind you that you can still feel.
Lit Hardway
Key Tracks: Leaving California, April, The Soldier, Cracks In The Canvas
Moods: Spooky, Passionate, Gutsy, Intense, Complex, Hypnotic, Unsettling
related
- Antony and the Johnsons – The Crying Light
- Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career
- Ben Gibbard & Jay Farrar Collaborate For Kerouac
