P.J. Harvey- White Chalk (2007)

This may not be my favourite album by P.J. Harvey but it is probably, objectively speaking, the best that I own. Haunting, sparse, meaningful; it grows with each listen.

I’m afraid I don’t tend to register the lyrics much for those albums I’ve discovered in my thirties and (early!) forties, such as this one- I understand the lyrics are quite meaningful in this album but I don’t really know. What I can say is that I’ve heard Polly sing like this before, and to such sparse use of instrumentation, but not over a whole album. Her voice sounds at once just like herself and completely different.

The cumulative effect is both breathless and breathtaking and the resulting collection of songs, as well as the overall soundscape, is a rather neglected gem of an album that doesn’t seem to be mentioned as often as it should be.