| | p j harvey Dry CD p j harvey Discography of CDs
 (1 Customer Review)
As the first installment to the world of Polly Jean Harvey, DRY is a cautionary dip of the toe to test the temperature. DRY serves as an introduction to Harvey's fierce guitar--which at times recalls the front porches of the Delta--and highly visual lyrical angle that picks at the scabs of female iconography. And though it is the most modest of her initial three releases production-wise, Harvey's sheer talent makes DRY's mythical undercurrent hard to escape.
In "Sheela-Na-Gig" the narrator begs her lover for attention, but is answered with taunts of "you exhibitionist." According to Harvey, a Sheela-Na-Gig is a symbol of a woman ripping her reproductive organs out of her body...but laughing about it. On that song, and on the rest of the album, Harvey grabs on, and won't give up juxtaposing the nursery rhyme singsong of "gonna wash that man right out of my hair" with the contemptuous refrain, "put money in your idol hole." As the two sides duel it out--and the eerie classical overtones of Harvey's violin, and the aggressive guitar drenched in blues and rock textures mesh--DRY makes it clear that Harvey is a force to be reckoned with.
Recorded at The Icehouse, Yeovil, England.
PJ Harvey: Polly Jean Harvey (vocals, guitar, violin); Stephen Vaughan (bass); Robert Ellis (drums, vocals, harmonium).
Producers: Head, P.J. Harvey, Robert Ellis, Vernon.
Personnel: PJ Harvey (vocals, guitar, violin); Rob Ellis (vocals, harmonium, drums); Mike Paine (guitar); Chas Dickie (cello); Ben Groenevelt (double bass).
Audio Mixer: Rob Ellis.
Recording information: Icehouse, Yeovil, Somerset, England.
Additional personnel: Mike Paine (guitar); Chas Dickie (cello); Ian Olliver, Ben Groenevelt (bass).Spin (12/92, p.69) - Ranked #18 in Spin's list of the '20 Best Albums Of The Year' - "...Polly Harvey is a boundless talent, and DRY one of the debuts of the year..."
Entertainment Weekly (10/2/92, p.60) - "...A scorching portrait of the dark side of the female psyche....an uncomprising work of exhilarating, cauterizing beauty..." - Rating: A+
Q (1/93, p.73) - Included in Q's list of the 50 Best Albums Of 1992.
Alternative Press (7/01, p.96) - Included in AP's "10 Essential Women's Rock Albums" - "...Sexy, honest, smart and raw..."
Option (Sept.-Oct./92, p.109) - "...PJ Harvey seems to have placed a microphone right in front of her sternum and let her heart and soul spill direct to tape...the rawness of presentation emphasizes the emotional purity of her songs...stunning songs and unexpected power..."
Musician (10/92, p.106) - "...Polly Harvey pours more emotional power into her performances than any young songwriter since Throwing Muses' Kristin Hersh...[the songs] stick in your memory like glue..."
Village Voice (3/2/93, p.5) - Ranked #4 in the Village Voice's list of the 40 Best Albums Of 1992.
NME (Magazine) (10/2/93, p.29) - Ranked #71 in NME's list of the 'Greatest Albums Of All Time.' Dry Music | List Price | $13.95 (You save $1.96) | | Category | Rock Albums, Alternative CDs, Rock/Pop | | Label | Island | | Orig Year | 1992 | | All Time Sales Rank |  12210  | | CD Universe Part number | 1231719 | | Catalog number | 555001 | | Discs | 1 | | Release Date | Jun 10, 1997 | | Studio/Live | Studio | | Mono/Stereo | Stereo | | Engineer | H.E.A.D. | | Recording Time | 39 minutes | | Personnel | p.j. harvey, Rob Ellis, Head, Ben Groenevelt, Chas Dickie, Ian Olliver, Mike Paine, Vernon.
Recorded at The Icehouse, Yeovil |
Purchase Dry CD To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Portishead Dummy CD (1994)
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 $11.49    
Named for a town near Bristol, England, Portishead is a British dance band that grabs ideas from all over the mod pop world (spaghetti Western guitars, turntable scratching, melancholy soul vocals, atmospheric organs, house beats) and stirs them into spacey, dub-like productions that sound like a dance club in the middle of a "Twin Peaks" dream. You could call it surreal hip-hop pop. But if the beats on the band's debut album achieve a kind of trance-like static, the songs themselves reach for something more rousing. With understated lyrics and overstated melodies, singer Beth Gibbons and bandleader Geoff Barrow write insinuatingly melancholy dance ballads that ebb and flow like waves through rustling waters. Organs quaver in quiet tremolos, guitars emit ...
| | p j harvey Rid Of Me CD (1993)
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$6.65
Slicker in production and tighter as a band, RID OF ME finds PJ Harvey's dynamic blend of siren sing-song and leering guitar groomed and ready for show.
As a band, their evolution into an empathetic unit rather than mere accompaniment is obvious in their tight yet subtle arrangements. Recorded by Steve Albini, this forceful sophomore effort veers from hoarsely quiet to ferociously looming in one beat. Drummer Robert Ellis and bassist Robert Vaughn's precise rhythm pocket and Ellis' background vocals spill over with a confidence that was lacking on DRY, and the band's grasp of the material is envious.
RID OF ME'S songs further examine Harvey's love for farce (in particular, "Me-Jane" and "50 Ft. Queenie"), and rework the accusatory mysticism of DRY ("Snake" and "Man-Size ...
| | p j harvey 4-Track Demos CD (1993)
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$6.39
4-TRACK DEMOS contains eight songs from RID OF ME and six previously unreleased songs all in demo form.
4-TRACK DEMOS is PJ Harvey's second collection of album demos (the first was included on the limited edition version of her DRY album), and is further proof, if it were needed, of the astonishing power of her songwriting. Consisting of demos from the RID OF ME album and six non-album tracks (several of which had previously appeared as B-sides to UK singles), 4-TRACK DEMOS is as basic and stripped-down ...
| | p j harvey To Bring You My Love CD (1995)
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$12.59
TO BRING YOU MY LOVE was nominated for a 1996 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance. "Down By The Water" was nominated for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
The same stylistic evolution which separated DRY from RID OF ME is taken a step further on TO BRING YOU MY LOVE, PJ Harvey's fourth album. No longer relying on the guitar, bass and drum format of standard rock, Harvey takes cues from the likes of indie instigator Trent Reznor to define the new vibe in alternative rock. TO BRING YOU MY LOVE's casual mix of organic and inorganic sounds replaces Harvey's earlier electric precision with a deadlier, more brooding sound.
Marking a departure for Harvey, she plays many of the instruments herself, creating a collage of sound that seemed impossible on past recordings. Where the material on those albums was built on driving guitar lines and band interaction, TO BRING YOU MY LOVE flavors dancier grooves, decorated with bass and rhythm patterns. The guitar is more orchestrated--as opposed to obvious--making TO BRING YOU MY LOVE a dramatic feat of arrangement and poise. Once again Harvey far surpasses even the most confident expectations placed upon her as a performer and songwriter, ...
| | p j harvey Is This Desire? CD (1998)
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$12.65 
IS THIS DESIRE? was nominated for the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance.
Author of a brand of feminine angst that far predates the Alanis nation, Polly Jean Harvey brings a heretofore-unseen level of drama to the pop form. She is possessed of a rage that is finely focused, and an artistic sensibility that injects her music with a disarming, highly literate edge. Her fifth album, IS THIS DESIRE? finds Harvey delivering on the promise of her earlier albums: without losing any of the rage of her earlier, more guitar-driven work, she further refines her psychotic tales of obsession and despair, all the while laying down a sonic groundwork which is always experimental and unexpected, including a heavy dose of electronica.
Harvey's trademark whisper-to-a-scream vocal style is present throughout IS THIS DESIRE. "The Sky Lit Up" sees a casual, almost spoken vocal erupt slowly into an otherworldy wail, accented perfectly by wild guitar textures. "Catherine" is a sublime, evocative ...
| | p j harvey Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea CD (2000)
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$10.39
STORIES FROM THE CITY, STORIES FROM THE SEA was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album. "This Is Love" was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
Polly Harvey in a mellow mood? Actually, sort of. While her trademark feminist angst is still largely in place here, by and large the music is less confrontational than in days of yore. Several of the tracks--"Good Fortune," "A Place Called Home," "One Line"--verge on pop; in fact, they could pass for slightly more abstract Pretenders songs ("You Said Something" really does sound like Chrissie Hynde singing a mutant country tune).
Given its title, it's not much of a surprise that "The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore," manages to work up a convincingly atonal guitar racket, but otherwise the only song that really captures Harvey's trademark Captain Beefheart-like fury is (again, unsurprisingly, given its title) "Kamikaze." Other highlights include "Big Evil," which centers around a biting neo-psychedelic riff (sort of "Paperback Writer" gone dissonant), the hypnotically ...
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| | Dave Peck Out Of Seattle: Live At Jazz Alley CD (2002)
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Dave Peck is one of those pianists who helps one understand why certain songs have been labeled "standards." They represent that core of American popular music which challenges the likes of great jazz pianists to take full advantage of the improvisational opportunities they offer. For his fifth album for his Let's Play Stella outfit, Peck, in trio format, successfully takes on the test of giving a fresh perspective to songs which have been recorded and played a countless number of times. With an agenda running from a relatively modern jazz ...
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