PJ Harvey’s final reissue from her back catalog, B-Sides, Demos & Rarities, is a 59-track collection spanning three decades, with most of the songs previously unavailable physically or digitally, and 14 tracks either previously unreleased or in previously unreleased versions.
Available as a 6 LP, 3 CD, and Digital boxset, PJ Harvey's B-Sides, Demos & Rarities also features previously unseen archive photography by Maria Mochnacz. The mastering and vinyl cutting was done by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering under the guidance of long time PJ Harvey producer John Parish.
The first EP released from the project includes a previously unreleased demo version of “Dry,” an unreleased demo of “Missed,” and “Somebody’s Down, Somebody’s Name,” available digitally for the first time.
Polly says, “‘Dry’ was one of the first successful songs I wrote. I hadn’t written that many, maybe 5 or 6, and would sit down and play them to any friend that would care to listen. I had always collected words and phrases in a notebook, so when my mum bought me an acoustic guitar that a friend of hers was selling, it felt natural to try and sing the words I had saved, and that’s how it began. John Parish had recently given me my first 4-track recording lesson and this was one of the first recordings I made on my own.”
From the outset of her career, the work of PJ Harvey has commanded attention. A multi-instrumentalist, she is primarily a vocalist, guitarist, and pianist, while also an accomplished player of the autoharp. In 1991, Harvey formed her eponymous bass/drums/guitar trio in Dorset, England and by that autumn had released the debut single, “Dress,” on independent label Too Pure. Dry, released March 1992, was hailed globally as an astonishing debut album, particularly in the United States, where Rolling Stone named Harvey Best Songwriter and Best New Female Singer of 1992. In 1993 she signed to Island Records and released her second album, Rid Of Me, which garnered Harvey her first Mercury Music Prize nomination.