Recording in Progress: An Art of Process
In the blunting cold of January, the surprising announcement that Polly Jean Harvey would be recording her next album in plain sight, inevitably fired up much heated excitement. PJ Harvey would be working for a month – as an exhibition at Somerset House for a new Artangel project – with her band in a custom built studio that would allow the public to view the process. It offered an opportunity usually reserved to an artist’s inner circle, for wider audiences to experience that fly-on-the-wall moment. With only a few 45 minute bite sized slots a day for 50 people, it was something akin to a gold rush to get a ticket. There could be no guarantee of what we would actually get to see and hear, be it a key recording moment, the laying down of drum tracks, a vocal recording, or a run through a complete song. Perhaps we might find ourselves only intimate with a banal moment.
Upon arrival at the designated meeting place and time – phones confiscated – we were ushered down flights of stairs and along corridors in the underbelly of the rather grand former Tax Office. A spacious basement room had been partitioned with large double one-way glass windows, allowing the musicians to remain undisturbed in their studio by our invited, but eager eyes. My eyes immediately swung to Polly Jean who commanded an instant focal point in the room. She carried a measured and easy gravitas with her tiny frame. The working group included Über producer Flood, and collaborator Mick Harvey, who occupied one of two sofas. John Parish sat with a bank of keyboards, guitars and an array of hand percussion neatly laid out on an easy-to-hand nearby surface. Saxophones and the beautiful, intriguing zithers we’d seen Harvey play on Let England Shake, are poised on stands around the room. Cables snake their way from the instrument microphones to the far end of the room where the recording kit takes care of the core business here; amplifiers, graphic equalisers, the mixing desk, the playback speakers. A huge paper chart on one wall outlines the bank of 18 songs titled with red marker, accompanied by scribbled notes and ticks.
The working group were in playback mode, listening to a song ‘A Dog Called Money’, going back and forth between two very different versions of the same song: discussing which they preferred in pace, rhythm and feel. Differences of opinion highlighted a tactful yet comfortable diplomacy, which became ever more evident when they moved onto another song: one which Flood didn’t feel was working. A discussion erupted around whether to ‘cull or keep’ the track. PJ was emphatic that she wasn’t yet ready to let this song go, though agreed its current semblance wasn’t up to scratch. Sensing that Flood also didn’t want to waste time, she immediately offered a resolution that they’d set a time by which they’d decide. Harvey listens intently to the opinions around her, and when she speaks, expressing her opinion, everyone returns the regard. Throughout the session, she walks back and forth to the wall chart adding and crossing out notes on the songs, inadvertently asserting her ownership over them. These ordinary yet weighty moments were punctuated with broken laughter of familiarity and a sense of intimacy. Just as we started to feel involved, the sound cuts. Our 45 minute session was over, and we were politely escorted out, while over our shoulders, the musicians continued on obviously on without us. We were only temporary watchers, after all.
As someone who has spent a fair amount of time ‘behind the scenes’ in the music world – I found Recording in Progress intriguing. We are watching art being made, and while it feels a privilege, its value as an ‘art spectacle’ poses broader questions. In the exhibition notes, Harvey discusses her visual arts background with Artangel Co- Director Michael Morris. They perceive turning the recording process into a ‘sculptural object in motion’. I felt there were parallels to an industrious forge, a place of work – albeit where expert tunesmiths shape and meld the raw material of songs and craft into intricately layered pieces of treasure. It’s a kind of musical alchemy. The process of recording tries to capture an energy, a mood or feeling, create an individual dynamic for each song and the overall album. The myriad of ways in which a song can be arranged and layered requires a bold vision to not lose its essence. The producer’s role of helping the artist articulate, interpret and shape their vision, is a vital component and very much on display here.
PJ herself elaborates: ‘In the recording studio a song will grow only as much as I’m prepared to let it…I’ll listen to what the other players bring to it. If I feel it’s straying too far from the spirit of the song then I’ll rein it back …and steer us back to it’s essence, but as I get older I’ve learnt to let go more – often what the musicians I work with can bring to a song may turn it into something quite different, and completely unexpected, which can make the song stronger.’
I’m often an advocate of not revealing too much of process. There’s a benefit to keeping an air of magic about music, about art – so we can experience and feel its power, form and beauty, without examining the stitches in the seams. We live in an age where we can increasingly find out and examine how everything is made. It’s as if we need to repeatedly check the gift horse’s teeth to make sure it’s worthy of our time and attention. PJ Harvey has adeptly retained a sense of privacy about herself and her work, so it’s a slight contradiction that here, the exposure of process this exhibition gives, doesn’t feel at odds with that. Indeed, it’s satisfying to see the laborious and intricate approach to the creation of her art. It shows that art isn’t all flamboyance and magic flourish, but that artistic vision requires painstaking and meticulous graft, a refining curatorial and selective approach. I anticipate this window into the creation of an artist’s work, will add another layer of pleasure in the listening of the album when it is released. I look forward.
joel mills 