Design by Michelle Henning, drawings by PJ Harvey.
An album that’s been a continual visitor to the Coulthart CD player over the past few months, Let England Shake was consciously composed like George Crumb’s Black Angels “in time of war”, referencing not only wars present but those long past. Coiled around the bellicose theme is a portrait of a nation whose patriotism is built on sand. England did shake this year, and the unavoidable correlation of PJ Harvey‘s words with the events of the summer makes her album stand in relation to 2011 the way The Specials’ Ghost Town did to 1981.
In addition to the CD, Let England Shake also comes as a DVD of a dozen short films by photographer Seamus Murphy, one film for each song. Harvey and Murphy have very generously put the full set on YouTube in HD. Follow the links below.
