Comfort, a resting place and balm for the soul; that is what PJ Harvey wants to deliver with her album I Inside the Old Year Dying. It is her most serene record in a thirty-year music career, which previously reflected the war protest Let England Shake (2011) and the social engagement of The Hope Six Demolition Project (2016). She started singing differently: no longer with the typical Harvey contralto but with a higher voice, often tending towards falsetto.
Her concert on Friday, the first of two evenings in Paradiso that sold out in the blink of an eye, reflected that new PJ Harvey. In a white dress and a rustic decor with antique furniture, she gave a fantastic expression to the softer music of her new album, which was played in its entirety. Her four musicians, including longtime stalwart John Parish, constantly changed instruments and gave Polly Jean Harvey the opportunity to showcase her music with theatrical expression. She danced gracefully or struck soft chords on her guitar.
Silent as a mouse
She sang her lyrics, based on the epic poem Orlam which she wrote earlier, partly in the archaic dialect of her native Dorset. References to the Bible and Shakespeare, but also Elvis Presley, were mentioned. “Are you Elvis? Are you God?” she sang on ‘Lwonesome Tonight’. And then “love me tender”, accompanied by her Explorer guitar – not a hard rock attribute for Harvey, but part of a subtle, idiosyncratic folk bedrock.
Nature and environmental sounds were added to music that gradually became louder, but still produced a sea of concentration among the virtually silent audience.
PJ Harvey, who turns 54 this week, can draw on an awe-inspiring oeuvre that lends itself to a thematic approach. After the 45 minutes of the new album, she disappeared from the stage and the four gentlemen played a robust ‘The Color of the Earth’ to open the second part. Once again in her white dress (she doesn’t dress up) Harvey sang about love in a cruel world. With the shrill sound of the autoharp, in ‘The Words That Maketh Murder’ she paraphrased rocker Eddie Cochran and his ‘Summertime Blues’: “What if I take my problem to the United Nations?”
Compelling finale
In ‘Send His Love To Me’ she sang about love as a prison: “How long must I suffer?” Her prayer ‘The Desperate Kingdom of Love’ became a compelling highlight of the concert, played practically solo on the acoustic guitar and with words as weapons against loneliness. With the controlled rocking ‘Dress’ she returned to her very first single from 1992, again with references to romance and the impossibility of selfless love. Three songs from the album To Bring You My Love (1995) took the concert to a compelling finale.
The thematic circle was completed with the closing song ‘White Chalk’, about her childhood in Dorset and the gorse-covered landscape. PJ Harvey enchanted with a chillingly beautiful concert, which brought comfort and uplifting beauty to Paradiso.