It's been four years since PJ Harvey released Let England Shake, and thanks to a multi-media presentation at Royal Festival Hall in London, we're finally getting our first taste of new music from her with 10 brand new songs performed on the night.
The performance was part of a multi-media production titled The Hollow of the Hand, which had Harvey performing new material and reading original poetry alongside photos and short films by Seamus Murphy.
According to Pitchfork the new songs performed included "Chain of Keys," "The Wheel," "The Orange Monkey," "Dollar Dollar," "The Community of Hope," "Homo Sappy Blues," "Medicinals," "Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln," "River Anacostia" and "The Ministry of Social Affairs," which samples Jerry McCain & His Upstarts' "That's What They Want."
Watch fan videos of the songs below.
A video posted by ItsReallyLoudInHere (@itsreallyloudinhere) on Oct 9, 2015 at 2:28pm PDT
#PJHarvey #TheHollowOfTheHand A video posted by Jay Hess (@mmmrhess) on Oct 11, 2015 at 4:46am PDT
The Hollow of the Hand serves also as the title of her new poetry book, which features three sections each representing a leg of her trips to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Washington D.C. between 2011 and 2014. Harvey's poems appear alongside Murphy's photography as they both explored the lands and cultures featured in the book.
During the performance Harvey read the poems "Dance on the Mountain," "The Hand," "An Initiation," "The Glass," "Dead Tanks," "The First Shot," "Begging Bowl," "Talking to God," "At the Air Base," "To the Oldest Homosapiens" and "3 a.m. Washington, D.C." Fans can read three of her poems over at The Guardian.
Harvey began publicly working on her album earlier this year as part of an art installation at London's Somerset House titled Recording in Progress, in which fans could watch her artistic process through one-way glass. According to Pitchfork, she is working with producers Flood, who contributed to Let England Shake, and John Parish, who helped Harvey debut the songs on stage this week.
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