Published on Aug 3, 1997
A good producer can do wonders for an artist, especially an
already exceptionally good artist. For PJ Harvey, it took
super-producer Flood to make an album that fully utilized her
talents. Other producers gave it a nice shot.
In Utero producer Steve Albini showcased PJ Harvey raw
shrills with
Rid Of Me, but Flood gave PJ Harvey a true sense of
direction with
To Bring You My Love.
Indie purists may have bitched that
To Bring You My Love was overproduced, but only on the song
“Send His Love To Me” does Harvey allow the luxury of a sweeping
orchestra arrangement. Besides, in PJ Harvey’s case, her incredible
vocal range merits a good production. Flood gives the percussion,
guitars and violins on the album a resonance that’s rich but never
overpowers the main quality of the album: Harvey’s voice.
Harvey’s voice unfairly lumps her with the other top female
artists of today. Harvey, along with Tori Amos, Liz Phair and Bjork
are grouped together because of their genre busting albums, but
each has a distinct voice that defies catagorization. Harvey is
probably the hardest to categorize in the bunch. On the title
track, Harvey growls with the intensity of blues great Howlin’
Wolf. In “Teclo” and “Send His Love To Me”, Harvey has a sound so
mature, they would fit nicely on a classic Brahms recording.
In 40 short minutes, Harvey covers an entire spectrum of music.
While she wades in the “deep south waters” of delta blues, she also
adds her own 90s rock sense into the mix. In “Long Snake Moan”,
Harvey yells above a wall of amped up guitars “It’s my voodoo
working”. In “Down By The Water,” a rattlesnake percussion meances
while Harvey hisses “Little fish, big fish swimming in the
water/come back here man give me my daughter”. Is that line a
testament of motherly rage or a horrifying account of abortion? Who
the hell knows. All I know is that we’re far from Alanis
Morrissette country here, folks.
The watery images and sounds of
To Bring You My Love coincide with Harvey’s wrestling with
religon. In the murky title track, Harvey shuns redemption and
boasts, “I’ve laid with the devil/cursed god above/forsaken
heaven/to bring you my love”. Yet in “Send His Love To Me”, Harvey
achingly bellows, “I’m begging Jesus please/send his love to me”.
That line alone has more commitment and yearning for spirituality
than my entire Christian upbringing.
I’m not one to boast about any decade of music being superior to
the last. Each decade produces about an equal amount of shit and
classics. But with
To Bring You My Love, I have to admit I’m pretty happy to be
maturing in the 90s.
To Bring You My Love contains all of PJ Harvey’s quirkiness
of her earlier albums, but it also has a fertileness that contains
sediments of blues, gospel, white noise, old school rock and even a
little opera thrown in for good measure.
When unrestrained, PJ Harvey can go too far.
Dance Hall At Louse Point, last year’s side project with
John Parish, was a good example. Parish, who handled the percussion
for most of the songs on
To Bring You My Love, and Harvey made a somewhat decent
album. It still fell far short of the range that PJ Harvey is
capable of though. I can only hope that she pairs up with Flood for
one more album. In the meantime,
To Bring You My Love puts PJ Harvey in with the most
imporant artists of today.