PJ Harvey Guests on New Albums by Shida Shahabi, Oliver Leith
PJ Harvey has lent her voice to new records by two experimental composers, according to Stereogum. Her most recent solo album, I Inside The Old Year Dying, came out in 2023, and the report notes she does not appear to be rushing to follow it up.
Shida Shahabi’s “Wreath”
Iranian-born, Stockholm-based composer Shida Shahabi has announced a new album, First Light At Hand. Its lead single, “Wreath,” is a drone piece running about six and a half minutes. Harvey co-wrote the track with Shahabi and sings on it.
The two met in London two years ago, when Harvey curated the Gunnersbury Park Festival and booked Shahabi to perform. They have been friends since.
Harvey said she was drawn to the music’s “deep, earthy weight” and the way it slowly evolved, comparing it to a living organism. Knowing Shahabi wanted the piece to have words, something she does not often feel the need for, Harvey asked her to write a page of freeform lyrics inspired by the music. Harvey used those words as the basis of the song, adding and editing as she went. They discussed simplicity and a cyclical quality, a sense of life and death and of beginnings and endings. Harvey kept her melody simple and repetitive to match the slow shifts in the music, and she said she liked how Shahabi looped her vocal and used it like an instrument sample.
Shahabi said “Wreath” was one of the first pieces she began working on for the album, built from recorded overtones with slow progressions. She felt early on that the music was meant for someone else to step in and add to. She described the process as special and meaningful and said she was in awe of the care put into the track.
Oliver Leith’s Doom And The Dooms
Harvey also contributes to Doom And The Dooms, an album released last month by British musician Oliver Leith, whose work includes the Kurt Cobain-inspired opera Last Days. Leith recorded it with Sean Shibe, GBSR Duo and 12 Ensemble. It is presented as having been recreated from tapes found at a garage sale. Harvey makes multiple contributions to the record.
Harvey said that when she first heard Doom And The Dooms on the radio as a child, their music “went inside” her. She described a melancholic longing in their songs, full of both sadness and joy, and said she feels her own work has been trying to recapture that feeling ever since.
Release details
First Light At Hand is due on March 5 via Still Light. Doom And The Dooms is out now on PLATOON Ltd.
Harvey also recently released a one-off single, “Voyager,” sung from the perspective of a space probe, Stereogum notes.
Source: stereogum.com
Image: ManoSolo13241324 / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
