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Jacob Blickenstaff

PJ Harvey & John Parish played Irving Plaza (pics), the El Rey (setlist), Leno (video) & KCRW (video)

photos by Jacob Blickenstaff

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey‘s previous album with John Parish was 1998’s Dance Hall at Louise Point, but the 12-year wait was worth it. Harvey’s brutal doctrine – that nothing should sound like anything either of them has done before – has produced a thrilling, boundless work. The songs are riots of changing themes and multiple musical personalities. Black Hearted Love, in which Parish’s granite riff fuels one of Harvey’s best ever rockers, finds two lovers frolicking in the abyss, while Pointless, Passionless chillingly catalogues a stone-cold relationship. April, with its snail’s pace, is plaintive and purifying. Harvey’s vocals range from animalistic shrieks to haunted narratives, as she depicts everything from the gleeful humiliation of a cuckold (“lily-livered balls!”) to the days that follow a death. It all hangs together brilliantly, suggesting the mutual understanding of two artists at the peak of their powers.” [Guardian]

PJ Harvey and John Parish have now finished up a short U.S. tour that included a stop at SXSW (pic, setlist), a stop on Leno (Hulu video), a visit to KCRW (video), a show in LA (setlist below), and a show at Irving Plaza in NYC last night (3/26). More pictures from that last one, below…

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey & John Parish @ El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles 3/23/09 – setlist (via)
Black Hearted Love
Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen
Rope Bridge
Urn With Dead Flowers In A Drained Pool
Civil War
The Soldier
Taut
Cercle
The Chair
Leaving California
A Woman A Man Walked By / Crow
Passionless
Cracks In The Canvas
Pig Will Not

encore:
False Fire
April