Pj Harvey and Low at Spandau Citadel / Monday, 20.06.2016

PJ Harvey returns this year with a new record documenting a unique artistic journey, which took her to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Washington, D.C. The album was recorded during her month long residency at Somerset House, “Recording in Progress”, in which audiences were given the opportunity to see Harvey at work with her band and producers in a purpose-built studio.

Following on from the Mercury Prize winning album “Let England Shake”, this film clip provides a glimpse of what’s to come from PJ Harvey’s ninth long player.

She formed the eponymous bass/drums/guitar trio in 1991 in Dorset, England and by autumn had released the debut single, ‘Dress’, on independent label Too Pure. Harvey began an impressive critical climb, which set the stage for a highly anticipated album release the following month. ‘Dry’ was hailed as an astonishing debut, not just in the UK but worldwide and especially in the United States, where Rolling Stone magazine named Harvey ‘Best Songwriter’ and ‘Best New Female Singer’.

PJ Harvey’s 2011 album, ‘Let England Shake’, was created with a cast of musicians including such long-standing allies as Flood, John Parish, and Mick Harvey. Its songs centre on both her home country, and events further afield in which it has embroiled itself. ‘Let England Shake’ evokes the troubled spirit of its time, but also casts its mind back to times and places from our long collective memory.’ Let England Shake’ won Harvey her second Mercury Music Prize, entering her into The Guinness Book Of Records as the only artist to have achieved this. The album was also awarded Album of the Year at the 2012 Ivor Novello Awards.

In 2011, Harvey began collaborating on various visual projects with the respected photojournalist Seamus Murphy. Murphy, an award-winning photographer, has spent over two decades uniquely documenting conflict through his lens. His work has taken him to Rwanda, Eritrea, Kosovo, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. ‘Let England Shake: 12 Short Films By Seamus Murphy’ serves as a visual accompaniment to the album, each track having its own short film. In the same year, Harvey worked again with director Ian Rickson on music for Ophelia in a production of Hamlet at the Young Vic starring Michael Sheen.

In August 2013 PJ Harvey released a new song, ‘Shaker Aamer’, to highlight the ongoing detention of the last British resident held without trial inside the US prison at Guantánamo Bay. The track was streamed exclusively on The Guardian’s website and received positive worldwide attention.

PJ Harvey has collaborated with an extraordinary range of musicians, including Thom Yorke, Nick Cave, Tricky, Bjork, Hal Wilner, Howe Gelb of Giant Sand, Pascal Comelade, Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes, and Sparklehorse. She joined Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) on his critically acclaimed ‘Desert Sessions’ project [2003] and worked with Mark Lanegan on his solo album, ‘Bubblegum’. Harvey produced the debut album by American artist Tiffany Anders and also wrote, recorded & produced material for Marianne Faithfull’s ‘Before The Poison’ [2004].

Low. A band from Duluth, Minnesota, formed in 1993. Featuring Alan Sparhawk on vocals and guitar and Mimi Parker on vocals and drums and Steve Garrington on bass. Sparhawk and Parker are married with two children; they first met in fourth grade in rural Minnesota. Garrington is the latest addition to the band, longtime bassist Zak Sally previously replaced original bassist John Nichols and Sally departed the group after the release of Great Destroyer.