Holy Cow - I've Gone All Arty.

Listening to White Chalk by PJ Harvey

A good long Interview with Ms Harvey in the pub here.

This CD arrived along with So Percussion's version of Drumming and strangely the two albums convey quite a lot of the same emotions. Drumming always make me think of unpopulated towns in a snowstorm. It has a weird deep level of emotion despite being so scored that there is little scope for adding anything personal to a performance - you have to play it pretty much as it is written. The continuously evolving sequences over the 73 minutes of this version seem to drip sadness in my mind, far more than most songs with lyrics. Quite an achievement for a man who has not exactly had a hard life. He feels for people. What exactly has to be in a tune to make it emotional? Technology is all very well but the ever-moving-forward advances that fill studios with boxes and racks and mixers seem to suck out all the actual point of most music. I know my wife thinks that Steve Reich produces repetitive, emotionless drones but I think they contain some of the deepest meanings possible in music.

My wife and I differ on White Chalk as well. She says that it sounds like a poor night-club singer. I think it probably needs a few listens for me to be able to write anything more about it but the lyrics seem to convey the same sense of mystery that Drumming has always given to me.