PJ Harvey is back with “I Inside the Old I Dying,” the second look at her upcoming album I Inside the Old Year Dying. Check out the new single below.
Harvey’s latest offering feels particularly ghostly, bringing to mind the atmospheric sounds of 1998’s Is This Desire? “The dead brakes host the holly’s bloody beads/ They are His crown of thorns and He will rise again,” the artist cries. Even though I Inside the Old Year Dying was recorded live, Harvey’s voice sounds miles away from the song’s gentle guitar.
“This delicate and beautiful song eluded us until the very last day in the studio,” Harvey said in a statement. “Over the previous five weeks we had tried so many times to capture it and failed, and/but then John reinvented the feel of the guitar pattern. As he was demonstrating it in the control room, Flood handed me a microphone and pressed record whilst I sat next to John trying to work out how to sing to it. The result somehow captures the ethereal and melancholic longing I was looking for.”
Harvey continued, “In the lyric everyone is waiting for the savior to reappear — everyone and everything anticipates the arrival of this figure of love and transformation. There is a sense of sexual longing and awakening and of moving from one realm into another — from child to adult, from life to death and the eternal.”
In addition to the new song, Harvey has announced new UK and European tour dates set to take place this fall. Check out all of her upcoming shows below, and grab tickets here.
I Inside the Old Year Dying arrives in full July 7th via Partisan Records. Produced by her longtime collaborators John Parish and Flood, it marks Harvey’s 10th album overall and follows 2016’s The Hope Six Demolition Project. Previously, she shared the song “A Child’s Question, August.”
PJ Harvey 2023 Tour Dates
09/22 — Dublin, IE @ 3Olympia Theatre
09/23 — Dublin, IE @ 3Olympia Theatre
09/25 — Glasgow, UK @ Barrowland
09/26 — Glasgow, UK @ Barrowland
09/28 — London, UK @ Roundhouse
09/29 — London, UK @ Roundhouse
10/02 — Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall
10/03 — Manchester, UK @ Manchester, UK
10/06 — Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
10/07 — Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
10/09 — Brussels, BE @ Cirque Royal
10/10 — Brussels, BE @ Cirque Royal
10/12 — Paris, FR @ Olympia
10/13 — Paris, FR @ Olympia
10/15 — Zurich, CH @ Volkshaus
10/16 — Zurich, CH @ Volkshaus
10/18 — Prague, CZ @ Velký sál Lucerna
10/19 — Prague, CZ @ Velký sál Lucerna
10/21 — Berlin, DE @ Admiralspalast
10/22 — Berlin, DE @ Admiralspalast
10/24 — Warsaw, PL @ Palladium
10/25 — Warsaw, PL @Palladium
10/27 — Copenhagen, DK @ Falkonersalen
10/28 — Copenhagen, DK @ Falkonersalen
10/30 — Oslo, NO @ Sentrum Scene
10/31 — Oslo, NO @ Sentrum Scene