PJ Harvey has been reissuing her albums, including her demos, throughout the year and uploading her videography in YouTube, too. I could have picked anything from this stunning and underreported slew of re-releases, but ‘Angelene’, a song originally released in 1998, is extra special to me. The video was - as far as I know - unavailable online until now. The demo has a special, gritty glow to it, while the finished version is as perfect as a song can get: a tiny, fragile universe unto itself with a lead character that comes to life in just a few lines and notes, telling a story that unfurls as matter-of-fact and inevitably tragic as the Salinger story Harvey was inspired by.
From ‘Is This Desire?’ and ‘Is This Desire? Demos’
