The Quietus - A new rock music and pop culture website

Baker's Dozen

A Woman, A Man: John Parish's Favourite PJ Harvey Recordings
Jennifer Lucy Allan , February 3rd, 2021 08:42

As PJ Harvey continues a major series of vinyl reissues of her incredible discography, her long-time collaborator and friend John Parish guides Jennifer Lucy Allan through his favourite 13 of her recordings

White_chalk_1612294066_resize_460x400

‘Dear Darkness’ (From White Chalk)
What I remember about this was the performance – the piano, and the vocal that Polly did – and how stunning that was at the time, how moving it was to witness, so when I hear this track in particular it does take me back to the moment we recorded it in 2006. 

We recorded it in Flood's own studio, which was basically like a garage somewhere in Kilburn. Kind of scuzzy, the wi-fi didn’t work very well, and it was cold. We were there for ages making that record, but I love that album, I’m very pleased with it, and that track is great. The drumming is just great too – Jim White was fantastic. Polly would hear him do something and say ‘that was great could you do that again’ and Jim would say ‘oh sure’ and then play something entirely different! Jim is not someone you can say ‘play it like that’ – he's going to do his thing, and it'll work or it won’t, but when it does, it'll be better than anyone else.