Is This Desire?PJ HARVEY
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Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain once described the Breeders album 'Pod' as the closest thing you could get to perfection considering its amazing stillness. They were right. PJ Harvey's most recent album 'Is This Desire?', for my mind, is probably the closest that any one has come since 'Pod' to recreating such perfection.
'Is this Desire?' is at once haunting, poetic, and sublime. It's lyrics, some of which I have included here, are beautiful examples of free verse. They evoke some of the central themes of PJ Harvey's music: spirituality, darkness, relationships (mostly turned sour) and questions of existence.
My quotation of these lyrics really does not do them justice. You really have to hear the way that she sings them: at one moment, like an angel, and the next, passionate and screaming in key. Somehow she seems able to create a striking balance in her music between the dissonance of white noise and something close to a traditional ballad.
In some of these songs, the raw power of PJ's lyrics songs is such that you can almost picture the sword in PJ's mouth as she runs her mouth across it in a bloodless affair. Oh brilliance!
Please take a look at some of these lyrics below. And don't forget to check out PJ's albums, which include 'Dry', 'Is this Desire?', Singles and Demos and more.
Is This Desire?
Joy
In the Garden
Sirens
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