PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

AV CLUB INTERVIEW

AVC: The title track of Let England Shake first surfaced as a TV performance, and a lot of people were shocked to see you onstage with only an autoharp. Is it helpful for you as a songwriter to experiment with an instrument like that, where you have a fixed set of chords to choose from?

PJH: It worked well with the way I was writing this record, because I wrote the words first, but then I held onto the world for a long time until I found the melody. So then all I have to do is fit the chords into music. I’ve already got the melody.

Used extensively on Let England Shake, particularly for vocals, as stated by producer Flood on Sontronics' official "Famous Users" page.

"I use the mics all the time, be it with Editors, Orbital, Karima Francis, Foals or anyone else. The mics were used on PJ Harvey's Mercury Prize-winning album Let England Shake mainly DELTA, SIGMA, ORPHEUS and HELIOS. We used DELTAs on amps; ORPHEUSs on Polly and John's vocals, brass and ambience. ORPHEUS was our go-to mic for anything and everything: voices, snare drums, acoustic guitars, autoharp, ambience and piano."

Used for the electric guitars on Let England Shake, as stated by producer Flood on Sontronics' official "Famous Users" page.

"I use the mics all the time, be it with Editors, Orbital, Karima Francis, Foals or anyone else. The mics were used on PJ Harvey's Mercury Prize-winning album Let England Shake mainly DELTA, SIGMA, ORPHEUS and HELIOS. We used DELTAs on amps; ORPHEUSs on Polly and John's vocals, brass and ambience. ORPHEUS was our go-to mic for anything and everything: voices, snare drums, acoustic guitars, autoharp, ambience and piano."