I think closest to Real Gone in PJ`s albums is Uh Huh Her. Both have simple, raw but great song arrangements & production. Also Dance Hall has something same but it´s more into Beefheart direction than Waits. And Yes, even To Bring my love is much more produced than any Waits album, I hear lots Waits primitive blues in it.

Well I'm talking about mixing. Production. The way the instruments sound. That slinky, grimey, bluesy sound. And the actual instrumentation and percussive arrangements. I may be wrong, probably an, but it's always a connection I've made.

I meaned also production. Even PJ:s two new albums are produced quite old-fashioned way these days, I think Real Gone is produced much rawer than those. If you had compared Bad as me, Alice or Blood Money to those two PJ albums, I would have agreed much more easily. I just think sound in those PJ albums is much more softer than it is in Real Gone. But anyway really love also Real Gone production.

Well, yes, maybe in instrumentation there is something same. Both use very little ordinary drums. There is very little guitar in PJ`s new albums, but Ribot´s guitars are just great also in Real Gone.

I fucking love Real Gone man. What an incredible album.

Really love it also when it came. Haven´t listened it a long time, going to some of these days. Also should listen again Mule.

Im liking what im hearing

I have a real soft spot for '90s and '00s Tom Waits. I think he hit a late career stride with Real Gone, Alice and Blood Money. And I love the '90s material like Black Rider and Bone Machine. And of course because I'm human and have ears, I love Rain Dogs and Swordfish Trombones and so on and so forth.

But I don't think it was until Real Gone that I started to consider him one of my favorite artists of all time. Something about that album just floored me. It's urgent, and it's subtle, and it's mysterious and it sounds like a wild animal. The solo in "Hoist that Rag" just kills me. It's got this mix of bluesy soul, dirty hard rock and even bits of dub and punk. Almost sounds like it could be a Clash record at times. And something about that sound and feeling seems to live in Let England Shake too. And Hope Six.

Yay! Glad to hear it. It's definitely a good album.

I can't get that "Community of hope" hook out of my head... "They're gonna build a Wal-Mart here! They're gonna build a Wal-Mart here!" To me it comes across not so much as a repetition, but as a fact. Like a DC tour guide is saying, "and on you're left, you'll see a vacant lot where they're getting ready to build a Wal-Mart, and to your right, another vacant lot where they're preparing to build another Wal-Mart! After this light, you'll see where the next block's Wal-Marts are going to be erected!"

I think it was -89 when I heard Swordfishtrombones first them and after that I have been huge Waits fan! Bone Machine was my first album to buy right after it´s release and it hit me hard right in the beginning, so did Black Rider. I was also glad after Mule just because there was so long time between Rider and Mule, but started thinking then he is getting old and little bit softer. To my suprise Blood Money & Alice were again sharper & greater than Mule. And I was really glad Real Gone was so raw album in the time almost everybody else made too much produced albums. It´s also of course songwriting is just great in those albums. Have to mention also Oprhans, it´s just so absolutely great when it´s supposed to be "just a off-takes compilation".

Really, Tom Waits creativity has been in the middle & last parts of his career. I don´t believe I would become ever so big fan of him if he hadn´t met Kathleen and started to make Swordfish etc.

With this new PJ-album and also many others I have to mention one man: John Parish. I don´t believe Polly would become as great as she is without him. Maybe too much to compare them to Lennon-McCartney, but I believe John really be with Polly when making arrangements into her songs. Also hard to understand why John´s solo career seem to be really underrated. I love all his albums, they are really personal mix of Beefheart, Syd Barrett & J.J. Cale.

Ok, I'm showing my own ignorance here, but when did Parish become involved with her solo albums?

I know he was in Automatic Dlamini, and I know they released A Woman a Man Walked By and Dance Hall at Louse Point (both great albums) together, but I'm woefully ignorant of the extent to which he's been involved with her other albums.

If I'm reading what you're writing correctly, he's a regular collaborator? Was involved with Hope Six? Would you mind explaining a little more.

The only PJ albums I have on hard copy at this point in my life are Dry, Rid of Me, TBYML, Stories..., and Let England Shake, so I don't have access to many of the liner notes to check for myself.

Bought hope six on iTunes, but I think I'm gonna order a hard copy because it's just turning out to be a major fucking record for me this year. And I used to have her entire discography on cd or vinyl, but moving, navigating storage units and running afoul of ex-girlfriends who were in possession of my shit has lead to the unexplained disappearance of many of my cd's and LPs. :(

Don't piss off your significant others and leave them with stashes of your personal belongings folks. I lost an entire comic book collection, a guitar, and about 300 albums to my previous girlfriend in 2007. Still stings.

I agree that John Parish is highly underrated, though. Even his records with PJ aren't given the level of attention that her "real" albums receive. I fucking love Dance Hall at Louse Point, but it's not considered a classic in the way the first three, Stories..., and Let England Shake are. Kind of a bummer.

Ok.. i like this record less now after full listen. I like that gutteral PJ epitomized in Uh Huh Her.. this is admittedly a better crafted and artistic record BUT not in the direction i prefer.

Frankly i find this record to be a bit too "British" for me

I get that. I do. I think I know what you're saying exactly.

Me, I love it... Though not as much as other PJ records.

I think you should really read the liner notes of PJ albums closer. John is one of the producers in To Bring You My Love, Is This Desire, White Chalk, Let England and the new one, naturally of course Dance Hall & a Woman a Man. And he also playes a lot in all those albums he´s producer (in this new on every song). There are no mentions about arrangements, but I believe John is also at least one of the arrangers. And those albums I mentioned are the greatest one in PJ albums IMO.

About John´s solos, I think you don´t know he´s made also own solos. How Animals Move, Once Upon a little time (my favourite), She Chinese and Screenplay are all huge Records, really recommend them all to you!

I have listened the new one all over again and it has become just greater! But one that I think is greatest is a Line In the Sand! It´s so supernatural beatiful, almost too much for me (like whole White Chalk). Hope she will play this one in June!

No, I know about Parish's solo albums. I was agreeing with your about them being underrated, and saying that even the albums he's done with PJ (which are of a higher profile than his solo albums) don't seem to get as much credit as I think they deserve.

But yes I will look at my liner notes more closely. Never really thought about it until I asked. I love PJ Harvey, but she's not one of those artists that I know everything about. I've just always really loved her music, and that's just how it is for me. Not sure why. I pay attention to production and session credits for other artists, and I learn where samples come from and what guitars are used for what parts, but I've never been that way with Polly Jean.

She's still one of my favorite artists though.

Well, at the moment when SY is in a hiatus that maybe lasts forever, I think PJ is my favourite artist! Really don´t still fully understand I am going to see her very soon (she´s never been in Finland)!

Yes, you´re right, also I think a Woman a Man didn´t get really much attention even it´s one of the best 2000 albums. John is too old? And a little bit more about his influence to PJ, I think I read from somewhere PJ wanted to change the guitar rock based music of Rid Of Me, but didn´t really at first know to what direction to go. But John helped in To Bring My Love her to find it. And then came great Dance Hall etc.

Thanks Mortte.

Yeah she's up there for me, and has been since the '90s. I think Sonic Youth's "hiatus" is pretty much just a break-up now. Thurston seemed to say as much recently. And let's be honest -- I'm not sure if you read Girl in a Band, but I think anyone who did is going to have a hard time picturing Kim Gordon willingly sharing time and space with Thurston Moore any time soon, and I don't really blame her much.

SY reuniting would be awesome, but at this point it would have to be a full-fledged reunion. Not just the ending of a "hiatus," which has been in effect for years.

But I do agree that with SY "out of the picture" (they'll ALWAYS be my #1 favorite band of all time, period) PJ is one of the last remaining champions of weird, awesome music.