PJ Harvey & John Parish - A Woman A Man Walked By

The collaboration continues (eventually)

It’s charming that, in this quickfix age, these long-term musical sparring partners have taken 12 years to record the follow-up to 1996’s Dance Hall At Louse Point. More charming still is Harvey’s intention to leave another dozen years before attempting the third collection.

A Woman… finds the pair continue the rigid “she writes words/he performs music” doctrine, but the results are so varied that at any point across the 10 tracks you could be listening to Captain Beefheart, PJ’s glam Stories From The City..., Bat For Lashes, Huggy Bear – and anything in between. At its wildest, as on the raucous Pig Will Not and the title track, Harvey sounds deranged, freed from any kind of vocal styling or even composure, shrieking and howling over Parish’s blues churn. But on Leaving California Harvey carries the high-pitched vocals of her White Chalk to their logical fraught conclusion.

Best of all is closer Cracks In The Canvas, wherein she stares closely at an artwork, begging god to answer her prayers, tracing fine cracks like roads. In the background Parish plays the scantest of organ lines, fantastically underpinning her observations – perhaps as good a summary of this long-awaited release as any.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Island | 1796236

Reviewed by Jake Kennedy
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