Lucy O'brien PJ Harvey Records a New Album in Public
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I am given a laminated ticket, my mobile phone is taken away and I’m escorted to the basement of the New Wing of Somerset House in London. Formerly the Inland Revenue’s sta! gymnasium and ri"e range, this almost-bare room now features a large architectural installation: a steel-framed box with waist-high wooden walls and windows that stretch up to the ceiling. In this vitrine, PJ Harvey has set up a studio for her new, as-yet-untitled album and, for a four-week period during January and February, the public has been coming in to view the recording process in real time. ‘I hope peo- ple will see the attention and the labour and care that goes into making a recording,’ Harvey said before the project began. Harvey has always been interested in the connection between music and visual art. She was o!ered a place at London’s Central Saint Martins to study sculpture, but turned it down when her music career took o! in the early #$$%s. Although she has carved out a place at the forefront of rock, with eight best- selling albums and world tours, she has continued to paint and sculpt, exhibiting at the Lamont Gallery in London and at Bridport Arts Centre. The idea of turning her recording process into ‘a mutating sound structure’ – titled Recording in Progress – emerged out of a collaboration with public-art commissioning body Artangel and the cultural hub of Somerset House. PJ Harvey, photographed by Seamus Murphy, 2014 Lucy O’Brien Music PJ Harvey records a new album in public Courtesy: © Seamus Murphy FRIEZE NO. 1 7 0 APRIL 2015 29 MUSIC Some critics have dismissed the last verse we need to improve.’ Harvey’s installation as just The musicians sing the part again. another form of music-business And again. The briefest of looks marketing, creating an ‘event are exchanged; they move from culture’ spectacle at a time when mikes to instruments and laptops. to be part of her process. ‘It gives record companies are &nding ‘We want two "utes and a trumpet. you real insight […] I like to think it increasingly di'cult to sell Could that ‘F’ be picked out by that, when we hear the album, albums. Director of Somerset Artangel’s co-director Michael a brass part?’ we’ll think back and know we were House, Jonathan Reekie, says Morris, Harvey wondered if the Now the focus is on part of the recording,’ enthuses fan that this is ‘complete nonsense. I situation might make the musi- Edwards’s baritone sax. He sends Philip Barnes. don’t think Polly [Harvey] needs cians self-conscious. Today they out raw blasts while Harvey listens Back upstairs, the crowd publicity stunts to sell her albums. seem slightly nervous. The fact through headphones, nodding line up to purchase memorabilia, Where and how she makes a they are all dressed in smart- to the instrument’s deep bass but there’s nothing as vulgar as a record is very much part of the casual black raises the question of notes. He plays it one way, then tour T-shirt. There are £.%% /01 process. She clearly thought about whether there is a dress code and if another. ‘If it’s not interesting,’ limited-edition Seamus Murphy the environment she wanted. It is they are on their best behaviour. she o!ers, ‘go back to what you photographs of Harvey in the cata- deliberate, not random.’ Harvey sits very still – eyes did &rst. That grainy slap-backy combs beneath Somerset House Part of the attraction for closed, listening intently – while type of thing.’ The musicians talk and £)% /01 framed lyric sheets Harvey was the historical reso- the musicians and producer, in textures. Sound for them is a showing her elegant script broken nance of Somerset House. Once Flood, sing the words ‘da la’ over physical material. Making a song up by scribbled notes. These prints the home of nobility, the building and over again with a slow rhythm. is like a sculpting process, adding emphasize the meticulous e!ort straddled an inlet of the Thames When they &nish she says: ‘It and removing notes until the behind her songwriting. ‘River so that barges could sail directly breaks my heart. In a really good shape is revealed. Anaconda’, for instance, has the inside; Oliver Cromwell’s body way.’ Everyone laughs. ‘I just &nd it As an audience, we can &ll the phrase ‘What will become of us’ lay in state there after his death really moving,’ she adds, and then empty space between song frag- annotated with ‘E "at min/ in #()*, bringing Britain’s short glances at Flood. ‘It sounds like the ments with our imaginations. Just Em/F major/ D min/C maj 2345’. period as a republic to a close; and right amount of people?’ Everyone before Edwards plays his sax, we With this project, Harvey has the Tax O'ce was based there in the box is wearing radio mikes, hear a slightly confusing melee. shown that the working process until the late #*th century. This and their voices are piped through It sounds remarkably like the late can be as interesting to her audi- resonates with the new album’s to the audience. They can’t hear Poly Styrene of British punk band ence as the &nished album, the gig, dominant themes of water and us, but we can hear them. We are X-Ray Spex shouting before she the public presentation. However, death, the movement of refugees free to walk around the brightly launches into ‘Oh Bondage, Up it cannot be a totally realistic depic- and e!ects of civic regulation, and lit structure and observe it from Yours’ (#$--). If it is a sample of that tion of studio life. If the musicians the attempt by governments to a number of angles. moment, then Edwards’s mournful are feeling a little inhibited by being impose order on our lives. In one corner stands John sax is an inspired ghostly eulogy. ‘on show’, how much can they fully The overriding question with Parish, Harvey’s collaborator Alternatively, it could be a song immerse themselves in the music? this project is: does it actually since she was an #*-year-old art conveying the traumas of war expe- When musicians work in the studio, reveal anything about the labo- foundation student at Yeovil rienced by global refugees, another it is often a closed, intimate envi- rious realities of recording music? College. At the other side of the theme Harvey has been exploring ronment that involves a degree of We, an audience of approximately box are Terry Edwards (who has since her Mercury Prize-winning sensitivity and trust. Will the pres- +% people, stand watching Harvey played with musicians ranging album Let England Shake (,%##). ence of an audience mute the impact and her musicians through from Yoko Ono to Madness), Harvey has always been on record? We can only know that one-way glass. It’s like the gorilla saxophonist Mike Smith (Gorillaz responsive to the atmosphere when the album is released. cage at London Zoo, though member and long-term arranger of a particular space when she For now, Recording in Progress instead of bamboo and straw, this for Damon Albarn), and Mick records, and the listening public works best as an artistic statement, one is &lled with trailing wires Harvey (soundtrack composer inevitably adds another layer to and is another way that fans can and instruments. There is an and former Bad Seed). Flood, the outcome. When our +)-minute connect with Harvey. It might old piano, a drum kit, &ve saxes, meanwhile –who has produced slot is up, we &le out of the even inspire one or two to pick up a trumpet, a French horn, two U,, Depeche Mode, The Killers, basement slightly dazed. The audi- an instrument. As she says: ‘The guitars, assorted African drums New Order, Nick Cave and the ence consists mainly of Harvey best part of any creation is the and a legion of mikes. A large Bad Seeds and Sigur Rós – sits on fans. Some are already inter- creating itself.’ chart is stuck to the wall with a white sofa, issuing instructions ested in the con"uence between a list of songs and copious notes with understated ease. visual art and sound installa- Lucy O’Brien is course leader of written in red felt-tip pen. Back in ‘Again from the top,’ says tion. Others have never set foot music journalism at !"# Epsom, !$, December, in conversation with Flood. ‘It’s just the second line in in an art gallery before, but want and a writer and broadcaster. PJ Harvey has shown that the working process can be as interesting to her audience as the !nished album, the gig, the public presentation. 30 FRIEZE NO. 1 7 0 APRIL 2015.