Reinvented. It’s an irritating word often thrown around like a dog’s old tennis ball. Your coffee reinvented. Booking your holiday reinvented. The smartphone was reinvented. Driving reinvented. You get the general idea. In reality, it is not often reinvented at all, just given a subtle tweak.
It is a phrase often used in the music industry. If I had a penny for every time I heard about how David Bowie kept reinventing himself, I’d have £5.63. (Thank you to The Young Ones for their generous donation of this corny line). PJ Harvey could be pigeonholed as a musician that reinvents herself. But would that be a fair label?
PJ Harvey is a singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, actor, poet, record producer and visual artist. Musically, Harvey has released a varied music catalogue since being a member of Automatic Dlamini in 1988. That’s a career spanning 35 years – not to be sniffed at. Her last couple of studio albums have tackled global and political topics: big problems, challenges and enormous barriers. Think big. However, I Inside the Old Year Dying has leapt from one extreme to another.
Think small, almost claustrophobically small. The album is built around one person, a wood, and a village. “I instinctively needed a change of scale”, said Harvey, after spending years on the music business hamster wheel. Album, tour, album, tour, rinse and repeat. This album is about a desire to become more intimate, more human. So, let’s all get snuggly under this musical duvet and explore.
The opening minute of the album sets the tone for what lies ahead. It is stripped back, sensual and immediately intriguing. Harvey’s vocals grab your attention instantaneously. ‘Prayer at the Gate’ paints a mystical, otherworldly picture. It is a song with a sound of desperation, helped by Harvey’s contorting her voice to give it the sound of someone much older. “So look before and look behind/Life and death all intertwined”, trills Harvey, sounding like a cross between a soothsayer and the village witch.
‘Autumn Term’ is a slow, heavy-feeling song with strained vocals layered atop. The track is ultimately about returning to school after the freedom of the summer holidays. “I ascend three steps to hell/The school bus heaves up the hill”, tapping into the younger life of PJ Harvey but told through the life of Ira-Abel Rawles, the album’s protagonist.
The stunning clarity of Harvey’s voice becomes apparent to me whilst listening to the next track, ‘Lwonesome Tonight’. You don’t listen to it but absorb it as if through some form of sonic osmosis. It is pure yet haunting, emotive yet detached. It’s beautiful. Musically, it could have been lifted straight from the soundtrack of a mediaeval or dark fantasy movie.
“Conzum-ed with twanketen that’s only eased by scratching/Whisp-words slim as thistles or a sickly chicken’s whistles”, croons Harvey in ‘Seem an I’. Not only is it a striking, if not unsettling, lyric, but it also highlights the use of her native Dorset dialect throughout the album. For example, twanketen means melancholy. However, using such words brings a level of displacement to the listener. Unless you are well versed in the Dorset dialect, the words could be part of a mystical language or from an era so far back in the rear-view mirror of history that it can no longer be seen. This allows Harvey to generate the feel of the past whilst somehow being in the present. The track evokes a faint feeling of The Doors at their most moody.
‘The Nether-edge’ sees Harvey combine the Dorset dialect with Shakespeare and Joan of Arc references. This is played out over an experimental, almost futuristic melody. Once more, we are presented with a curious set of words – “Gapmouth spins a rattle song/Air’s an upturned ocean”. A gapmouth is a nightjar, but it is a far more interesting word to use. Harvey is selective where she uses these words, keeping them on the right side of intriguing.
The title track is a more up-tempo affair and leans a little more towards what we would expect from Harvey. Her voice sounds like a merging of Ani DiFranco and Siouxsie Sioux. Gentle piano notes appear fleetingly, softly punctuating a driving drum beat and repetitive guitar strum.
We are then taken into a swampy-sounding soundscape whilst Harvey’s piercing, crisp vocals act as a counterweight. This develops into a chant-like delivery. ‘All Souls’ sees another reference to Wyman-Elvis. The album, and the stories told within, are drawn from Harvey’s collection of poetry, Orlam, released last year. Wyman (warrior) Elvis is the ghost of a Civil War soldier with whom Ira-Abel Rawles falls in love. He is part Elvis, part Christ figure – an interesting blend indeed. A song of love and loss, it certainly punches the heart into submission.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge answered a child’s question: “Do you ask what the birds say? The Sparrow, the Dove, the Linnet and Thrush say, ‘I love, and I love!'”. This rouses the story within ‘A Child’s Question, August’. There’s also a smattering of inspiration from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. “Help me dunnick, drush and dove/Love Me Tender, Tender love”, rumbles Harvey in a nod to Elvis Presley. There is a mix of desperation and hope in Harvey’s delivery. Another song that delivers a healthy serving of melancholy directly into your grey cells.
“The dead brakes host the holly’s bloody beads/They are His crown of thorns, and He will rise again/Oh Wyman, Oh Wyman/Unray I for en”, Harvey sings passionately in ‘I Inside the Old I Dying’. Undressing for the Christ/Elvis (Unray I for en), Rawles appears willing to lose her innocence to her great love and move towards womanhood – a rite of passage with an almost sacrificial air.
‘August’ explores the fact that all living things must die. You cannot escape the inevitable. Death, birth, rebirth, love and loss are the overarching story of this album. This reflects Harvey’s relationship with music after the tour supporting her 2016 album The Hope Six Demolition Project. Thankfully, she found a path towards the love of music and a rebirth of her passion, with this album a culmination of this.
I’ve always liked an eerie and dark folk song. The emotion they can stir within and the uncomfortable sensations they can evoke appeal. Harvey delivers this by the bucketful with ‘A Child’s Question, July’. It sounds like a lovely folky jaunt at first but takes a sinister turn. “Who’s inneath The Ooser-Rod?/Horny devil? Goaty God?” Harvey bestows with a childlike, naive delivery. The Ooser Rod is the Devil’s abnormally large penis, the Ooser being the Devil or someone in a scary disguise to frighten folk—unsettling stuff. Sleep well, everyone, and please, don’t have nightmares.
The album climaxes with a nod to Keats I Stood Upon A Little Hill. As summer leaves, Rawles says goodbye to Wyman-Elvis. It focuses on the emptiness within Rawles as Harvey sings breathily, “Just a noiseless noise, just a gawly (empty/hollow) girl, just a bogus boy”. The song concludes with the line, “Go home now, love, leave your wandering…”. Once more, we are treated to Harvey’s vocal gymnastics throughout this song. Where has she been hiding this wonderful depth and range?
Harvey and her long-term creative partner John Parish and regular producer Flood have merged to create something truly wonderful and unique here. The recording studio was set up for live play, and they embraced the act and challenge of creativity. Flood’s role should not be underestimated here. His use of field recordings and audio library materials create unusual shapes and textures of sound that add an aura to this album that permeates through every second of every song.
So, has PJ Harvey reinvented herself with this album? Absolutely not. This may seem at odds with how I have described I Inside the Old Year Dying. Let me explain. Harvey is akin to one of those massive self-storage units. Probably not the most flattering of comparisons she has received, but nonetheless accurate. I do not feel that Harvey reinvents; instead, she opens another locker and scoops out more of her diverse creativity. This is not reinvention; Harvey never deviates from her values. She taps into her huge vat of talent and creates new things, underpinned by an indestructible foundation always to produce the best work she can.
Although there is use of the Dorset dialect, do not be put off by this. It does not detract from the album but enhances the feel throughout. It makes for a fabulous, if not quirky, record. And surely, we should applaud anyone who takes risks, does something a little different? There’s enough banality out there.
So, enter the liminal world of I Inside the Old Year Dying. Take a walk around. Listen to the goocoo’s call. Write your name in the wilder-mist. Listen to your footsteps as you walk through fallen tree tears. Take evasive action if you encounter the Ooser’s Rod. But most of all, allow yourself to be carried along through Harvey’s poetic story.
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