PJ Harvey claims she doesn’t “feel like a natural musician”
Ahead of releasing her new album I Inside The Old Year Dying on July 7th, Mercury Prize-winner PJ Harvey has revealed she doesn’t “feel like a natural musician”.
The new album is Harvey’s 11th LP and her first since 2016’s The Hope Six Demolition Project. Following the subsequent tour in support of her last project, Harvey fell out of love with music but later signed up for poetry courses which got her creative juices flowing before she started work on I Inside The Old Year Dying.
“I definitely hoped that I could sort of be in every era and no era all at the same time,” Harvey told The Guardian of her forthcoming album. Additionally, the musician explained why she wanted the album to exist within a “sonic netherworld”, which is impossible to pin down.
“I don’t feel I’m a natural musician,” she added. “I have to really work at it.” Sometimes she recited other people’s songs – Nina Simone, the Stranglers – but sometimes she just needed words for a new melody. While writing Orlam, “I’d grab at a poem because it was the easiest thing I had to hand.”
I Inside The Old Year Dying is produced by Flood and John Parish. According to a previous statement by Harvey, the album developed through “spontaneous performances” and was “recorded at the moment of their creation”. She added: “The studio was set up for live play, and that’s all we did.”
Harvey added: “I think the album is about searching, looking – the intensity of first love, and seeking meaning. Not that there has to be a message, but the feeling I get from the record is one of love – it’s tinged with sadness and loss, but it’s loving. I think that’s what makes it feel so welcoming: so open.”
Listen to the album’s titular track below.
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