Review: PJ Harvey's 'Is This Desire?' and 'Is This Desire?-Demos'

If there’s any doubt that OK Computer was the most influential album of 1997, just listen to the albums of 1998. With a single flip of the calendar, artists responsible for some of the most organic music of the nineties suddenly adopted Radiohead’s synthesized, sci-fi textures. They still used their guitars, but they tended to costume those guitars in heavy effects or bury them deep in the mix.

PJ Harvey was one such artist who tossed aside organic record making for heavily effected sounds in 1998. Is This Desire? finds Harvey sieving her bluesy rage and swagger through the synths, drum machines, and electronic effects fashionable in 1998. The extra textures expanded PJ Harvey’s art immeasurably and helped make Is This Desire? her finest album yet as far as I’m concerned. Despite the emphasis on weird production touches, the music is raw and real. “The Sky Lit Up”, “Joy”, “A Perfect Day Elise”, “My Beautiful Leah”, and “No Girl So Sweet” are as authentically aggressive and scary as anything on Harvey’s guitar-centric albums. “The Wind”, “Catherine”, “Electric Light”, and the title track settle to a spooky hush. Perhaps the album’s most brilliant track, “The Garden” matches the airy yet ominous arrangements of those tracks with one of the most propulsive and magnetic drumbeats on disc.

 

Although Flood (U2, New Order, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, etc.) and BAFTA-winning Marius de Vries had their hands in producing Is This Desire?, they didn’t bring too much to the project that Polly Jean hadn’t already brought during the demo phase. The progressive textures and perfectly sustained mood of Is This Desire? are already in place on her demos. In fact, the completed tracks of “Joy”, “No Girl So Sweet”, “Electric Light”, and “Catherine” are nearly identical to the demos. Although that makes a new disc of the previously unreleased Is This Desire?-Demos somewhat redundant, it also puts PJ Harvey’s mastery of her art in stark relief. Stripped down renditions of tracks that would become big productions (“Angeline”, “The Garden”, “The River”) make the demos disc worth listening to more than once. Such tracks make the role Harvey’s guitar plays on Is This Desire? much clearer,

 

As Is This Desire?-Demos makes it vinyl debut, the album it mapped out is also returning to vinyl for the first time since 1998. Both sound pristine with very deep bass and fine detail. That’s important for such a detailed, deep project.