PJ HARVEY - White Chalk - Original EU LP + Inner - P.J.

	£		26
	$		34

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** RECORD COLLECTOR **

PJ HARVEY

White Chalk

Original EU LP released on Island Records in 2007. Includes printed innersleeve.

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The quiet ones are always the scariest. Polly Jean Harvey's appearance on the cover of White Chalk -- all wild black hair and ghostly white dress -- could replace the dictionary definition of eerie, and the album itself plays like a good ghost story. It's haunted by British folk, steeped in Gothic romance, and almost impossible to get out of your head, despite (but really because of) how unsettling it becomes. White Chalk is Harvey's darkest album yet -- which, considering that she's sung about dismembering a lover and drowning her daughter, is saying something. It's also one of her most beautiful albums, inspired by the fragility and timelessness of chalk lines and her relative newness to the piano, which dominates White Chalk; it gives "Before Departure" funereal heft and "Grow Grow Grow" a witchy sparkle befitting its incantations. Most striking of all, however, is Harvey's voice: she sings most of White Chalk in a high, keening voice somewhere between a whisper and a whimper. She sounds like a wraith or a lost child, terrifyingly so on "The Mountain," where she breaks the tension with a spine-tingling shriek just before the album ends. This frail persona is almost unrecognizable as the woman who snarled about being a 50-foot queenie -- yet few artists challenge themselves to change their sound as much as she does, so paradoxically, it's a quintessentially PJ Harvey move. The album does indeed sound timeless, or at least, not modern.

White Chalk took five months to record with Harvey's longtime collaborators Flood, John Parish, and Eric Drew Feldman, but these sombre, cloistered songs sound like they could be performed in a parlour, or channeled via Ouija board. There is hardly any guitar (and certainly nothing as newfangled as electric guitar) besides the acoustic strumming on the beautifully chilly title track, which could pass for an especially gloomy traditional British folk song. Lyrics like "The Devil"'s "Come here at once! All my being is now in pining" could be written by one of the Brontë sisters. On a deeper level, White Chalk feels like a freshly unearthed relic because it runs so deep and dark. Harvey doesn't just capture isolation and anguish; she makes fear, regret, and loneliness into entities. In these beautiful and almost unbearably intimate songs, darkness is a friend, silence is an enemy, and a piano is a skeleton with broken teeth and twitching red tongues.

"When Under Ether" offers a hallucinatory escape from some horrible reality -- quite possibly abortion, since unwanted children are some of the many broken family ties that haunt the album -- and this is White Chalk's single. What makes the album even more intriguing is that it doesn't really have much in common with the work of Harvey's contemporaries or even her own catalogue. It rivals Dance Hall at Louse Point for its willingness to challenge listeners, but it's far removed from Uh Huh Her, which was arguably more listenable but a lot less remarkable. In fact, this may be Harvey's most undiluted album yet. When she's at the peak of her powers, as she is on this frightening yet fearless album, the world she creates is impossible to forget, or shake off easily. White Chalk can make you shiver on a sunny day.

Tracks Are :-

Side One

The Devil
Dear Darkness
Grow Grow Grow
When Under Ether
White Chalk

Side Two

Broken Harp
Silence
To Talk To You
The Piano
Before Departure
The Mountain

Released on 'Island Records' in 2007

Catalogue No. 1740335

Disc is in EX+ condition

Sleeve is in EX++ condition

Please contact me via Ebay Messages with any questions I will try my best to get back to you as quickly as possible.

PAYMENT BY PAYPAL ONLY FROM NON-UK BIDDERS

IF BUYING MORE THAN ONE ITEM PLEASE WAIT FOR COMBINED INVOICE!!!

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UK 1ST CLASS POSTAGE RATES FOR LPs & 12" SINGLES:

1 LP £3.90
2 LP £3.90
3 LP £6.50
4 LP £6.50
5 LP £6.50
6 LP £6.50

INTERNATIONAL POSTAGE RATES TO EUROPE FOR LPs & 12" SINGLES:

1 LP £6.10
2 LP £7.50
3 LP £9.00
4 LP £10.50
5 LP £12.00
6 LP £13.50

INTERNATIONAL POSTAGE RATES TO DESTINATIONS OUTSIDE EUROPE (USA, AUSTRALIA, JAPAN ETC ETC) FOR LPs & 12" SINGLES:

1 LP £8.50
2 LP £11.00
3 LP £13.50
4 LP £16.00
5 LP £18.50
6 LP £21.00

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POSTAGE RATES FOR 7” SINGLES & CDs:

UK: £1.80 – then £0.50 each extra.
EUROPE: £4.50 – then £0.50 each extra.
DESTINATIONS OUTSIDE EUROPE: £5.50 – then £1.00 each extra
AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND: £6.50 then £1.00 each extra

*********DOUBLES COUNT AS TWO*********

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IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT COMBINED SHIPPING ON ALL 12" VINYL / LPS / 12" EPS / 12" SINGLES - PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY!!!!

We offer combined shipping on all LPs / 12" Vinyls: our shipping rates are listed above. HOWEVER shipping packages that weigh more than 2kg is VERY expensive. Therefore we can only offer combined shipping up to a maximum of SIX (6) LPs / 12" vinyls. Any extra purchases will be invoiced, packaged and shipped separately.

***Due to the physical logistics of how I can package orders, I will not combine box sets with other items, I will only package them individually***

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COMBINED POSTAGE FOR DIFFERENT FORMATS will be invoiced at my discretion:

While I am happy to combine (for example) one or two 7” singles into one package with 12” records, sometimes it simply isn’t practical (like if you want me to combine one 12” record with three or more 7” records). I simply do not think that these combinations can be packaged together safely and securely. Therefore these will be invoiced separately as two packages.

IF YOU ARE UNSURE, please contact me before bidding!

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Sorry but I am no longer willing to carry combined transactions beyond two weeks of auctions (see below).

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PAYMENT

I would appreciate payment within seven days of the auction’s end. If you want to bid on more of my auctions ending a week later please inform me. I will wait and issue a combined invoice at the close of the second week’s auctions.

However, I am no longer willing to carry combined transactions beyond two weeks and in these cases would appreciate payment promptly after the close of the second week’s auctions.

I am sorry to have to introduce these measures – I always try to be patient and allow buyers to bid on extra auctions and / or delay payment. Unfortunately some buyers have been stretching out transactions to unacceptable lengths so I feel I have no option but to limit ‘carried over’ transactions to two weeks.