PJ Harvey returns with new single ‘I Inside The Old I Dying,’ announces UK and European tour

PJ Harvey has shared new single ‘I Inside The Old I Dying,’ as well as announcing details of a 2023 UK and European tour.

The double Mercury Prize winner marked her return back in April with the single ‘A Child’s Question, August’ and news of her 10th album I Inside The Old Year Dying, the long-awaited follow-up to 2016’s The Hope Six Demolition Project. Now, Harvey shares another taster of the record with what she described as “delicate and beautiful song eluded us until the very last day in the studio.”

“Over the previous five weeks we had tried so many times to capture it and failed, and/but then John [Parish, producer and collaborator] reinvented the feel of the guitar pattern,” she explained. “As he was demonstrating it in the control room, Flood [producer] handed me a microphone and pressed record whilst I sat next to John trying to work out how to sing to it. The result somehow captures the ethereal and melancholic longing I was looking for.”

She continued: “In the lyric everyone is waiting for the saviour to reappear – everyone and everything anticipates the arrival of this figure of love and transformation. There is a sense of sexual longing and awakening and of moving from one realm into another – from child to adult, from life to death and the eternal.”

I Inside The Old Year Dying, was written over a period of three weeks, although stemmed from ideas dating back to 2017 when she felt she had lost her connection with music.

Seeking to revive her connection with songwriting, the inspiration for the new tracks was uncovered following advice from film-maker Steve McQueen, who told her to ignore the ‘process of writing an album’, and instead rediscover why she first fell in love with “words, images and music”.

The album will see the singer-songwriter return to her roots – inspired by the likes of Nina Simone and Bob Dylan – and provide fans with “a resting space, a solace, a comfort, a balm” which is created to feel “timely for the times we’re in.”

I Inside The Old Year Dying, is set for release on July 7 via Partisan, and is produced by long-time collaborators Flood and John Parish.