PJ Harvey biography
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During her first performance since the Uh Huh Her tour, at the Hay Festival of Literature & Arts on 26 May 2006, Harvey revealed that her next studio album would be almost entirely piano-based and in October, released The Peel Sessions 1991-2004; a compilation of songs recorded from 1991 to 2000 during her radio sessions with John Peel. In November, she began recording her seventh studio album, White Chalk, with Flood, John Parish, and Eric Drew Feldman in a studio in West London. White Chalk was released in September 2007 and marked a radical departure from her usual alternative rock style,consisting mainly of piano ballads. The album received favourable reviews despite its style, which was described in one review as containing "pseudo-Victorian elements - drama, restraint, and antiquated instruments and sounds." Harvey herself said of the album: "when I listen to the record I feel in a different universe, really, and I'm not sure whether it's in the past or in the future. The record confuses me, that's what I like - it doesn't feel of this time right now, but I'm not sure whether it's 100 years ago or 100 years in the future" and summed up the album's sound as "really weird." During the tour for the album, Harvey performed without a backing band and also began performing on an autoharp, which continues to be her primary instrument after guitar and influenced her material after White Chalk.
In April 2010, Harvey appeared on The Andrew Marr Show performing a new song titled "Let England Shake." In a pre-performance interview with Marr, she stated that new material she had written had been "formed out of the landscape that I've grown up in and the history of this nation" and as "a human being affected by politics." Her eighth studio album, Let England Shake, was released in February 2011, and received universal critical acclaim from critics. NME's 10/10 review summarised the album as "a record that ventures deep into the heart of darkness of war itself and its resonance throughout England's past, present and future" and other reviews also noted its themes and writing style as "bloody and forceful," "remarkable and ethereal," and "her most powerful." Dealing primarily with the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, the album featured John Parish, Mick Harvey and Jean-Marc Butty as Harvey's backing band and the quartet toured extensively in its promotion. Following the release of the album's two well-received singles-"The Words That Maketh Murder" and "The Glorious Land"- and the collection of short films by Seamus Murphy accompanying the album, Harvey won her second Mercury Music Prize on 6 September. The award marked her as the first artist to receive the award twice and following her win, sales of Let England Shake increased 1,190% overnight. On 23 September, Let England Shake was certified Gold in the United Kingdom and was listed as album of the year by MOJO and Uncut.
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