I Inside the Old Year Dying

by PJ Harvey

Overview

On Let England Shake and The Hope Six Demolition Project, PJ Harvey documented troubled times in the world; on I Inside the Old Year Dying, she presents a spellbinding world of her own. The album expands on Orlam, her epic poem about the coming of age of Ira-Abel, a young Dorset girl whose companions include the bleeding, ghostly soldier Wyman-Elvis and Orlam itself, a lamb's eyeball that serves as the village oracle. As complex as this sounds, there's a lightness to I Inside that's especially welcome following the scope of Harvey's last two albums. Like Orlam, I Inside the Old Year Dying weaves the old Dorset dialect Harvey grew up hearing into its songs, and the local idioms only heighten its bewitching strangeness. "Seem An I" takes its name from the Dorset phrase for "it seems"; lyrics like "Billy from the boneyard/Wrangled 'round the orchard" set the scene immediately (and set the tone for the beguiling and terrifying psych-folk of "A Child's Question, July" later on). Even when the language is obscure, the mood is clear when Harvey sings about "the chalky children of evermore" over church bells, brittle guitars, and booming drums on "I Inside the Old I Dying." When Ira-Abel is told "leave your wandering" in the clearing that follows the distortion and feedback ambush of "Noiseless Noise," it's apparent that something has changed irrevocably. Harvey has excelled at mythical, intuitive storytelling on songs stretching back to "Sheela-Na-Gig" and "Down by the Water," and she continues that tradition with "All Souls," a creaking, tiptoeing "flesh farewell" that ranks among her eeriest work -- which is saying something. On "Lwonesome Tonight," she unites peanut butter and banana sandwiches, God, Elvis, and Ira-Abel's desire to grow up with a mesmerizing atmosphere that feels more real than some of her historically inspired music. The hallucinatory blend of folk, rock, electronics, and field recordings allows Harvey to venture deeper into the dreamspaces she's hinted at previously. She partially improvised the music with longtime collaborators John Parish and Flood, and the occasionally loose playing expresses the album's slippery relationship with reality perfectly. On "Autumn Term," spindly guitars, Harvey and Parish's twinned vocals, and a playground's worth of children blur together, capturing how Ira-Abel hovers between childhood and adulthood, past and present, and safety and danger. A processional beat barely grounds the hazy "A Child's Question, August," which alludes to Elvis' "Love Me Tender" with surprising poignancy. It's especially exciting to hear Harvey reintroduce electronics to her music, since she used them so vividly on To Bring You My Love and Is This Desire. "The Nether-Edge" is one of the album's finest examples of this, with a lulling, looping beat and whistling synths that sound like Harmonia reinventing the Wicker Man soundtrack. A triumph in its own right, I Inside the Old Year Dying's lively exploration is also a rekindling of something vital in Harvey's art in general. Though its whispers and shadows may not reveal everything, they're more than enough for a fascinating listening experience. ~ Heather Phares

Product Details

Release Date:	07/07/2023
Label:	Partisan
UPC:	0720841303220

Tracks

1. Prayer at the Gate
2. Autumn Term
3. Lwonesome Tonight
4. Seem an I
5. The Nether-edge
6. I Inside the Old Year Dying
7. All Souls
8. A Child's Question, August
9. I Inside the Old I Dying
10. August
11. A Child's Question, July
12. A Noiseless Noise

Album Credits

Performance Credits

PJ Harvey   Primary Artist,Fender Rhodes,Guitar (Bass),Guitar (Steel),Clarinet (Bass),Guitar (String),Guitar (Baritone),Guitar (Electric),Guitar (Nylon String),Piano,Vocals
Flood   Loops,Pedal Steel,Synthesizer
John Parish   Drums,Vocals,Trombone,Percussion,Vibraphone,Synthesizer,Guitar (Bass),Guitar (Acoustic),Guitar (Electric)
Ben Whishaw   Vocals (Background)
Colin Morgan   Vocals (Background)
Cecil   Loops,Piano,Sampling,Keyboards,Synthesizer,Keyboard Bass

Technical Credits

Cecil   Field Recording,Engineer
PJ Harvey   Drawing,Composer,Producer,Photography
Flood   Effects,Producer,Field Recording
John Parish   Producer
Rob Kirwan   Mixing,Engineer,Additional Production
Ben Whishaw   Engineer
Colin Morgan   Engineer
Michelle Henning   Design,Cover Photo,Art Direction
Sumit Bothra   Management,Executive Producer
Brian Message   Management
Rob Crane   Design,Typesetting
Steve Gullick   Portraits,Photography
Oliver Baldwin   Engineer
Sam Petts-Davies   Engineer
Olivia Plunket   Management
Ed Farrell   Assistant Engineer
Jacob Zinzan   Assistant Engineer