PJ Harvey, ANOHNI & Julie Byrne Return With Long-Awaited New Albums Out Today

Each week Release Day Picks profiles new LPs and EPs Team JamBase will be checking out on release day Friday. This week we highlight new albums by PJ Harvey, ANOHNI and The Johnsons, Julie Byrne and a tribute to Nick Drake. Read on for more insight into the records we have all queued up to spin.

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PJ Harvey – I Inside The Old Year Dying

Acclaimed British singer-songwriter PJ Harvey returns with I Inside The Old Year Dying, her 10th album and first in seven years. Recorded at Battery Studios in North West London, the follow-up to The Hope Six Demolition Project features 12 new songs written by Harvey in a span of three weeks. The new album was co-produced by Harvey, her longtime collaborators John Parish and Flood, the latter incorporating field recordings and other found sounds alongside traditional instrumentation. Harvey, who faced doubts about continuing to make music in the interim following her last album, further detailed the new record, stating:

“I was quite lost. I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do: if I wanted to carry on writing albums and playing, or if it was time for a change in my life – ‘OK, I’ve done this for a long time. Do I want to carry on for the remainder of my life doing the same thing?’ I can’t express how heartbroken I felt. It had always been my everything; my way of understanding.

“As a way of trying to heal myself – and I can’t think of a better word to use – I would go to the piano or the guitar and play my favourite songs by other people: a lot of Nina Simone’s songs, or ‘What A Wonderful World’ – which would bring me to tears as I was playing them – or [The Mamas and The Papas’] ‘California Dreamin’,’ or ‘Golden Brown’ by The Stranglers. And I would just realise: ‘No, it’s still there; I still love this so much that it’s like it keeps me alive.’

“This record sounds like it does because of our [Parish and Flood] relationship, and the fact we’ve worked together for so many years. The three of us come together and we all want the same thing – to challenge ourselves and not repeat ourselves. When I was younger, I felt such a need to try and stay in control of the music. And as I’ve got older, that seems far less important than seeing what can be created in that moment, in that room with those people, if you just let yourself be open. The studio was set up for live play, and that’s all we did …

“I’m somewhere where I’ve not been before. What’s above, what’s below, what’s old, what’s new, what’s night, what’s day? It’s all the same, really – and you can enter it and get lost. And that’s what I wanted to do with the record, with the songs, with the sound, with everything.

“I think the album is about searching, looking – the intensity of first love, and seeking meaning. Not that there has to be a message, but the feeling I get from the record is one of love – it’s tinged with sadness and loss, but it’s loving. I think that’s what makes it feel so welcoming: so open.”

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ANOHNI and The Johnsons – My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross

ANOHNI’s sixth studio album, My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross, was released today through Secretly Canadian. The 10-track LP is the British-born, New York-based artist’s first full album of original material since 2016’s HOPELESSNESS. The album cover depicts an image taken by Alvin Baltrop of legendary human rights activist Marsha P. Johnson. On the solicited suggestion of Rough Trade Records’ Jeannette Lee and Geoff Travis, ANOHNI sought out Jimmy Hogarth to produce her new album. Working with an outside producer was relatively new for ANOHNI who previously self-produced the bulk of her recordings. Hogarth also played guitar on the album and assembled the band who backed ANOHNI, including Leo Abrahams, Chris Vatalaro and Sam Dixon as well as string arranger Rob Moose. ANOHNI discussed the new record, explaining:

“There was a great ease to this songwriting process. I loved making this record in a way that I’ve never done before. Many of the recordings on this record – like ‘It Must Change’ and ‘Can’t’ – capture the first and only time I have sung those songs through. There’s a magic when you suddenly place words you have been thinking about for a long time into melody. A neural system awakens. It isn’t personal and yet is so personal. Things connect and come alive.

“I want the record to be useful. I learned with HOPELESSNESS that I can provide a soundtrack that might fortify people in their work, in their activism, in their dreaming and decision-making. I can sing of an awareness that makes others feel less alone, people for whom the frank articulation of these frightening times is not a source of discomfort but a cause for identification and relief. I want the work to be useful, to help others move with dignity and resilience through these conversations we are now facing.”

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Julie Byrne – The Greater Wings

Six years have passed since singer-songwriter Julie Byrne last released a full length album. Her new record, The Greater Wings, arrives today through Ghostly International. Byrne began recording The Greater Wings in 2020 with the late Eric Littmann, Byrne’s frequent collaborator and producer of her 2017 album, Not Even Happening, at Littman’s home studio in Chicago. Additional sessions were held in early 2021 in New York with harpist Marilu Donovan and later that year with violinist Jake Falby in Los Angeles. Littmann suddenly died in June 2021. While grieving the death of her longtime collaborator, Byrne sought to finish the new record. The album was completed during sessions held in the Catskills of New York with producer Alex Somers. Regarding her new release, Byrne stated:

“My hope for The Greater Wings is that it lives as a love letter to my chosen family and as an expression of the depth of my commitment to our shared future. Being reshaped by grief also has me more aware of what death does not take from me. I commit that to heart, to words, to sound. Music is not bound to any kind of linear time, so in the capacity to record and speak to the future: this is what it felt like to me, when we were simultaneous, alive, occurring all at once. What it has felt like to go up against my edge and push, the love that has made it worth all this fight. These memories are my values, they belong with me.”

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Various Artists – The Endless Coloured Ways – The Songs Of Nick Drake

The work of late British singer-songwriter Nick Drake is celebrated on the newly released all-star tribute album, The Endless Coloured Ways – The Songs Of Nick Drake. Drake released three albums between 1969 and 1972, Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter and Pink Moon. Drake died in 1974 from an overdose of prescribed antidepressants. The 25-track covers compilation features recordings of his songs by the likes of Ben Harper, Feist, John Parish, Aldous Harding, Bombay Bicycle Club, Fontaines D.C., Let’s Eat Grandma, John Grant, Self Esteem, Emeli Sandé, Guy Garvey, David Gray, Liz Phair, Philip Selway, Joe Henry & Meshell Ndegeocello and more. Manager of the Nick Drake Estate Cally Callomon and Chrysalis Records CEO Jeremy Lascelles conceived the tribute record. Lascelles detailed the project:

“Cally and I embarked on this venture with one simple brief to each of the artists – that they ignore the original recording of Nick’s, and reinvent the song in their own unique style. It was really humbling to hear so many similar responses, with everyone saying how important Nick’s music was to them, and how much they wanted to be part of this project. As the results came in one by one, we were thrilled by the brilliance and invention that each artist had shown. They had done exactly what we hoped for – they had made the song their own.”

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Compiled by Team JamBase.