• When you read press releases with titles like “PJ Harvey to Commence Work on a New Album,” your heart skips 57 or so beats. Or at least ours does. The whole release appears after the jump, but, basically reports that Harvey is heading to the studio in November are true. She will record a new album with Flood and former bandmate/guitarist John Parish. This fills us with excitement, anticipation and joy — in that order.
• Legendary emo godfathers Lifetime have a new two-song 7″ composed of their first new tunes in almost ten years, coming out on Pete Wentz’s Decaydance label. You can hear the record’s B-side here.
• Of all the things that come to mind when watching John Mayer’s VW commercial, the one we just can’t shake is: “Why are the windshield wipers on?” Are they creating extra-special feedback?
• We are pretty interested to see the new Nirvana documentary About a Boy, but we’re hoping for more than what this clip from the film provides, which is confirmation that Kurt was angry and hated himself. Cuz that just reminds us that we’re sad he’s gone, and that he was sad when he was here.

P J HARVEY TO COMMENCE WORK ON A NEW ALBUM

PJ Harvey: The Peel Sessions 1991-2004, 12-track live collection commemorating 2nd anniversary of BBC broadcaster’s death, in stores November 7th in U.S.

(Oct. 17, 2006 – New York, NY) Critically acclaimed British performer and core Island Records artist P J Harvey – will soon begin work on a new album, it was announced in England this week. It will be the much anticipated follow-up to Polly’s 7th album, 2004’s Uh Huh Her, the highest U.S.-charting album of her 15-year recording career.

The news coincides with the upcoming release of PJ Harvey: The Peel Sessions 1991-2004, on Island Records in conjunction with the BBC. Polly joins Pulp, House of Love, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and others with individual collections of their live sessions with the influential British disc jockey John Peel, which are all being released for the first time during a month of commemorative events to mark the second anniversary of his death (on October 25, 2004). The album will arrive in stores October 23rd in the U.K. and November 7th in the U.S.

“John loved the sessions and was thrilled to have Polly record so many for his show,” notes Louise Kattenhorn, producer of The John Peel Show. “He considered her a wonderful artist and they were great friends. It’s fantastic that they’re coming out on CD. I think he’d be very proud.” The twelve tracks were personally chosen by Polly and span her career – from early versions of the songs on her 1992 debut album Dry up through Uh Huh Her. (Please see track listing below.)

Meanwhile, work on Polly’s new studio album is set to start in November, when she joins forces once again with producers Flood (with whom she worked on her 1995 breakthrough To Bring You My Love, one of Rolling Stone magazine’s Top 500 Albums, featuring the Top 40 hit, “Down By the Water”) and her former bandmate/guitarist John Parish, who co-produced and played on To Bring You My Love and 1998’s Is This Desire.

As reported by Interference.com editor Carrie Alison, who was covering Polly’s sit-down interview with Hilton Als at the Supper Club during last Saturday night’s New Yorker Magazine Festival: “The discussion wrapped up with Harvey chatting about her new material, and the fact that she has been taking piano lessons that have ‘opened up a new area of ways to write and sing.’ A sizeable portion of the new record will be on piano, harp and autoharp, and she warns that with these new instruments, ‘the gates have been thrown open; there are no limits anymore.’”

PJ Harvey: The Peel Sessions 1991-2004

October 29, 1991:

1. Oh My Lover

2. Victory

3. Sheela-Na-Gig

4. Water

March 2, 1993:

5. Naked Cousin

6. Wang Dang Doodle

September 5, 1996:

7. Losing Ground

8. Snake

9. That Was My Veil

November 10, 2000:

10. This Wicked Tongue

11. Beautiful Feeling

John Peel Tribute Concert, December 16, 2004:

12. You Come Through