PJ Harvey: Tiny Desk Concert

Ann Powers, November 17, 2023 Polly Harvey has inhabited many characters throughout her 30year career and always dressed the part: catsuitrocking glam queen, highcollared Victorian wraith, miniskirted libertine, featheradorned warrior. Bringing the story told in her latest album, I Inside the Old Year Dying to the Tiny Desk, she stands at the microphone in a draped dress the wintry color of a gray alder tree, designed by her longtime costumier Todd Lynn. Its torn elegance perfectly suits the dual role she plays in these gently ferocious songs, which originated in her novelinverse, Orlam. As she lets loose her inimitable razorsharp alto, she becomes both IraAbel, the child who, in the aftermath of an assault, merges with the forest around her Dorset, England, home, and of the bard whose verses keep that shepherd girl alive after her vanishing. Harvey keeps her gestures minimal as she sets her scenes and speaks through them. Matching her voice to those of her trusted collaborators John Paris