In 2022, PJ Harvey published an epic poem called Orlam. Harvey’s 10th studio album, I Inside the Old Year Dying, isn’t exactly a musical setting of Orlam’s English and Dorset-dialect poetry; rather, it’s an interpretation of the poem with added improvisation. The result is as bizarre and fascinating as one could hope.
The story, if that’s the right word, feels ancient. On a farm in Dorset, a girl named Ira-Abel is watched over by the magical eyeball of Orlam, a lamb. Ira-Abel’s world is confined to the farm and the woods next to it, making her imagination and the supernatural the only way to extend her experiences and show her a path out of innocence. To this surreal environment is added the ghost of a soldier, Wyman-Elvis, who channels Elvis Presley. The song “Lwonesome Tonight” (note the Dorset spelling) asks the soldier, “Are you Elvis? Are you God?”
This cycle includes 12 songs, representing the final year of Ira-Abel’s childhood innocence. The opening “Prayer at the Gate” combines elements of R&B, atmospherics, and medieval chant into an ethereal welcome to Ira-Abel’s universe. The gentle distortion of the synthesized sounds scrapes at the bones and makes the blood swirl. This intense effect is accomplished with a melody that’s almost entirely stuck on a single pitch but dynamic enough rhythmically to trick the ear into believing it has a shape.
Harvey’s experiments with vocal production are endless. She tries something new on every track. She introduces “Seem an I” a cappella, with a shaky, childlike tone; that voice suddenly focuses, a new voice entirely, as the sophisticated arrangement begins on the first verse. The album closer, “A Noiseless Noise,” uses three more voices: low and jagged with glottal fry, piercing and strident against rolling drums and jangling guitar, then breathy and fragile.
“The Nether-Edge” pierces Harvey’s voice with electronic blips that sound more like science fiction than fantasy. The lyrics speak of the passing of the spring months in the meadows, a timeline driven by the rites and traditions of farming. In “Mäy u’ll tell if you’ll live or die,” Harvey warns, as she runs through a litany of rural signs of life and death.
Two actor friends join Harvey. Ben Whishaw () sings the chorus on the funereal march “A Child’s Question, August,” while in) sings the line “Love me tender, love me sweet.” There’s no escaping the spirit of Elvis in these songs, and somehow the girl’s obsession with the mid–20th century icon does not conflict with the story’s medieval sensibility. Not even this timeless corner of the earth is immune to the power of the King.
