The
Playhouse, Edinburgh
Distant
drums usher in the first of two special Edinburgh International
Festival shows by PJ Harvey and a nine piece band performing Harvey's
2016 album, The
Hope Six Demolition Project.
Conceived during trips to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Washington DC with
film maker and photographer Seamus Murphy, the result was a record as
much journalese as work of art. It tapped into global concerns of
poverty and the effects of war by way of a swathe of musical
influences fleshed out with a driving percussive edge.
The
title itself was drawn from a project in Washington where rundown
housing was
demolished to make way for new dwellings. The result was that the
original residents were priced out of the neighbourhood. Such
is the universal curse of gentrification and social cleansing.
Perhaps
this is why Harvey and her black clad nine piece band march onstage
like they're leading a funeral parade, martial drums to the fore.
Harvey herself walks barely noticeable at the procession's centre,
the only woman of the party looking like a Lorca heroine in mourning,
clutching a saxophone as she goes.
As
Harvey lines up as part of the three piece horn section, the pounding
introduction gives way to Chain
of Keys,
as Harvey finally steps up to the microphone. When she does, it’s
with a controlled power that sees her wield her saxophone like a
weapon while she sings. The jaunty The
Community of Hope is
a people-powered anthem set to a rousing chorus decrying how the
'hood is being messed up by Walmart’ in a way that got her in
trouble with Washington's local council. Live, the song has fresh
resonance, as though Harvey and her own community onstage are willing
the audience to rise up.
At
times Harvey's voice sounds close to vintage Patti Smith by way of
Grace Slick. While she barely says a word outside of the songs, once
she puts down her sax and releases the microphone from its stand, she
vamps it up for all she's worth, throwing shapes as if at a Balkan
wedding.
The
band is a well-drilled ensemble weaving reinventions of arcane blues
and folk idioms into stunning arrangements. Made up of much of the
album's alumni, including Harvey's long term collaborator John
Parish, former Bad Seed Mick Harvey and Gallon Drunk violinist and
guitarist James Johnston, they bolster Harvey with an intricate set
of hand-clap pulsed chorales. When Terry Edwards plays two saxes at
once or simply blares out his solos on Ministry
of Affairs,
it’s doubly thrilling.
Beyond
The
Hope Six Demolition Project,
the set is peppered throughout with a pick and mix selection culled
from Harvey's back catalogue. Hearing 50
Foot Queenie
and To
Bring You My Love would
be a treat anytime. Fleshed out with horn led arrangements that still
keep their raw heart intact, songs open out into eerier waters. The
twin saxes on To
Bring You My Love
are intense enough to suggest a hitherto undiscovered form of
mediaeval classicism.
Where
songs such as White
Chalk
and Dear
Darkness
are intimate short stories in which Harvey inhabits passing
characters for fleeting moments of intensity, The
Hope Six Demolition Project
is a widescreen epic. It's just as intense, but with each episodic
narrative linked across continents by action and consequence.
As
River
Anacostia's
ending segues into a massed a cappella finale, it sounds like a
redemptive chain gang unleashing their collective spirit on high.
After a standing ovation, Harvey and co return, first for a
rip-roaring reinvention of Dylan's Highway
61 Revisited,
before the rolling thunder that has driven the night finally gives
way to a raging calm.
Product, August 2017
ends
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