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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fun for all the family, 14 Feb 2004
By A Customer
Dance Hall at Louse Point is probably the most underrated, misunderstood and little-heard item in the whole Polly Jean Harvey catalogue. Upon its low-key release it was overlooked by many Peej lovers who assumed it was merely a minor collaboration with some obscure bloke. I won’t pretend to be an expert on her less famous co-writer and co-producer here, John Parish, although I know he played on two of her own albums and has also produced records by Eels, Sparklehorse and Giant Sand. On this album he wrote and played all the music, she sang and wrote the lyrics. While it’s not a full PJ Harvey album per se, Dance Hall at Louse Point still constitutes some of her most daring, challenging and adventurous work to date.The musical core of this collaboration is swampy, sweaty delta blues, but it also manages to incorporate elements of folk, goth, free jazz and lo-fi electronica into the mix. Twangy bottleneck guitars, twinkly atmospherics and creepy church organ are the order of the day. Parish’s stark, ambient soundscapes are the perfect foundation for PJ’s unique vocal experiments – she doesn’t simply sing these songs, she acts them out in full diva style. On tracks like City of No Sun, Urn With Dead Flowers in a Drained Pool or the extraordinary Taut, she howls in a screeching falsetto that’s scary enough to raise the dead; it’s at once painful and exhilarating to behold. Rope Bridge Crossing is my favourite song on the album – a hauntingly powerful, impassioned dream sequence where Harvey’s spoken-word poetry and vivid imagery meet their match in Parish’s drawling, stuttering guitar blues. That Was My Veil is a gorgeous, heartbreaking acoustic ballad without a trace of sentimentality. Civil War Correspondent is a hushed, mournful dirge of almost religious force; it rolls past like a stately funeral procession. Un Cercle Autour Du Soleil is a beautiful stream of dreamy, ambient reverb. I fully agree with the scottmoose78. This one is a difficult listen that takes time to sink its claws in and bears numerous rewards for those who are patient enough. At first I didn’t quite know what to make of this project, but now I find it spellbinding. Don’t foolishly dismiss this album because it doesn’t meet your expectations on a first listen. It’s a hidden gem well worth exploring.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unusual, startling and oddly beautiful, 7 Aug 2006
Dance Hall at Louse Point is an excellent and often unfairly overlooked collaboration between the Dorset rock queen and her long-time collaborator John Parish. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but this is late-night mood music of the highest order.
The lo-fi, stripped-down production and Parish's stark musical backing perfectly compliments some of Harvey's rawest vocals to date. Throughout the record she swings dramatically between different vocal registers, from angelic choirgirl falsetto to creepy whisper to shredded gut howls, as if she's role-playing different characters for each song. She sings every song on this album with a demonic, throat-clenching intensity that's almost frightening. City of No Sun and Taut are not for the faint-hearted!
Songs like Rope Bridge Crossing and Civil War Correspondent are poetic, dreamlike and chillingly beautiful. That Was My Veil is a break-up song of bitter sexual jealousy and bruised vulnerability. Heela mixes a spaghetti western vibe with bluesy Led Zeppelin swagger, and on this track Polly's shrieking, androgynous falsetto actually sounds like Robert Plant as she pleads with a voodoo healer to exorcise her body of an obsessive love; musically, Heela builds relentlessly towards a climax of subsonic bass shudders and layered slide guitar assault. Un Cercle Autour Du Soleil is a lingering dirge that crawls along at a turtle pace until the three-minute mark, when it stuns you with a reverb-drenched guitar break that is luminously beautiful, suddenly filling the record with blinding white light.
Dance Hall at Louse Point is not the most immediately listener-friendly work in PJ Harvey's back catalogue. To be frank, it took me at least four or five listens before I really fell in love with it, but it was well worth the effort. With this album, Harvey and Parish take us on an astounding journey into the musical heart of darkness. Take a chance on it.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Raw, nerve-shreddingly passionate blues at its very finest, 2 Jan 2002
I give five stars without the slightest hesitation -however, if you're looking for an easy commercial album, I would suggest looking elsewhere, as neither Polly Jean, or her long-standing collaberator John Parish are noted for there interest in such musical fields, being more concerned with creating something artistically stimulating. Suffice to say, they have succeeded, with the interesting expedient of splitting the work entirely in half, Parish writing and performing the music, with Polly writing and performing the lyrics / vocals.Dance Hall is a darkly fascinating folk / rock / blues production. At points mournful and introverted, the next moment ballistic with both music and Polly's voice hurtling like a banshee through the octaves, its raw, uncompromised feel sets it firmly apart from the mainstream. Apparently, it was intended to be the musical / auditory accompaniment to a coreographed visual production that never came off -a pity, as that would have been a highly interesting event. Structurally, the album is raw, loose, and abstract thanks to Parish's (excellent) music, reminicent of early King Crimson in some of its more unusual textures and bass-lines, whilst Polly is at her best in providing some genuinly disturbing lyrics with her usual frightening intensity. Despite the apparant lack of structure, after the several listens neccessary to appreciate the twisted subtalties in music and lyrics, the tracks begin to gel and the listener is dragged into a convoluted labyrinth of dark dreams. This is a very deep album, born of artistic genius. Enjoy.
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