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Product Details
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Track Listings
| 1. The Devil |
| 2. Dear Darkness |
| 3. Grow Grow Grow |
| 4. When Under Ether |
| 5. White Chalk |
| 6. Broken Harp |
| 7. Silence |
| 8. To Talk To You |
| 9. The Piano |
| 10. Before Departure |
| 11. The Mountain |
Product Description
From Amazon.com
This carnival ride to the netherworld of the soul is PJ Harvey's most dizzyingly radical work since the raw pulse and grind of her 1993 debut. It's also entirely different. Harvey's created an emotionally fractured Gothic fairytale that rides on her spare, tattered piano playing and her voice, which she turns into a fragile siren's call: high, airy, and imperiled, and made otherworldly by a labyrinth of echo. Instead of pop tunes, Harvey offers an 11-song cycle that's the metaphorical story of a breakup in which the Devil, a drug-induced nightmare, and a seemingly bottomless pit of despair all play a part. At the end, in "The Mountain," her banshee wails conclude a journey so oblique it's worthy of David Lynch or Neil Gaiman. Flood, who co-produced Harvey's 1998 epic rock breakthrough Is This Desire? with her, reprises that role, but White Chalk is more chamber music--and a dark chamber at that. --Ted Drozdowski
Album Description
White Chalk is Pj Harvey's eighth studio album and first new material since 2004's critically acclaimed Uh Huh Her. Pj Harvey went into the studio late last year to record and produce with Flood and John Parish. The three had worked together previously on the Grammy nominated To Bring You My Love and on Is This Desire? White Chalk also includes musical contributors from Harvey's long time associate Eric Drew Feldman, and Jim White from The Dirty Three.
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Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A provocative album of lonely beauty.,
By brunella (Scotland,UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: White Chalk (Audio CD)
PJ Harvey has never been shy of deconstruction or experimentation with her sound - seemingly exempt from any commercial pressure, Harvey has been allowed a journey (perhaps by her label) that many of her contemporaries would truly envy."White Chalk" continues with evolution of the artistry - down a darker corridor and off the beaten track into a wilderness less supported by six string and rhythm - replaced by the desolate sound of piano, falsetto vocal and ballad as the main components. In shifting direction with vocal, P J has replaced the rock-and-roll harlot personae once heard circa "Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea" and "Uh Huh Her" with an angelic and at times haunting Chanteuse - a storytelling vocal that creates the album's ethereal charm: part Victorian séance and part Bronte's "Wuthering Heights". The mood of the album is mournful and more than a little spooky. (The opening track, built on a piano-and-shakers girl-group riff that's not a million miles from Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black", is a winsome ditty entitled "The Devil"). The landscape is the chalk hills of Harvey's native Dorset, a setting for her Kate-Bush-esque themes of loss, death, family, memory. Singing in an eerily girlish soprano register, Polly longs for her late grandmother; asks "Mummy" to "teach me to grow"; grieves an unborn child who "disappears in the ether/One world to the next". The penultimate "Before Departure" is all but a suicide note. Some of the eleven songs - "Grow Grow Grow", "Broken Harp", "To Talk To You" - are more uncomfortable rides than others, recalling the murkier moments (e.g. "Electric Light") on 1998's unjustly overlooked "Is This Desire?" Immediate winners and stand out moments include the creepily intimate "Dear Darkness", arranged in slow waltz-time; "The Silence", all pulsing piano and brushed-snare sixteenths; and "When Under Ether" with its metronomic rhythm similar to "Down By The Water" provide the albums stand out moments. For those new to PJ Harvey this may not be the most accessible album. For those who have followed this far on the journey, "White Chalk" is another wonderfull moment - a provocative offering. An album of lonely beauty and piercing sorrow, "White Chalk" is P.J. Harvey back at the peak of her considerable powers. Give it a chance and you'll come to realise that "White Chalk" is every bit as impressive as PJ's earlier record, but in a more grown-up and mature way.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
That's PJ,
By Lulu (France) - See all my reviews
This review is from: White Chalk (Audio CD)
While I was a bit taken aback by some reviews, I bought this album expecting to be somewhat disappointed. I was not. Since the last few days, I've been listening to it non stop, and I'm still amazed. This album is just brilliant, though musically different, it's so faithful to PJ's spirit. More intimist, darker, and completely haunting. PJ allows us to enter her inner world, a mix between fairy tale and gothic novel. Each track brings enchantment, though clearly, the Devil, White Chalk and Silence stand out.A true genius at the top of her creativity. Highly recommended!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
echoes from deep within,
By notes from "aurora" (Montreal,Quebec) - See all my reviews
This review is from: White Chalk (Audio CD)
like something you`d hear echoing from deep within the Appalachian mountains.The deep expression of sorrow,remorse, failure, pain in all its manifolds..yet truly exquisite in its subtlety and depth...I walk away from this wondering do we ever really growup and move away...gorgeous...I think its her best work yet, each piece streams into the other yet offers something new and fresh with each song. This is one of those timeless cds where upon return you discover some new insight from the lyric ..
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