PJ Harvey Debuts 'Raw,' Tragic Video for 'England' -- Exclusive Premiere

PJ Harvey's career has flirted with the weird and avant-garde, but the singer-songwriter's newest album, 'Let England Shake,' explores the country of her birth through its naturally quiet and oppressive landscapes. To bring her unique project to life, director and photographer Seamus Murphy shot a video for 'England,' as well as 11 other videos to accompany all songs on the album.

"As with some of the other film's openings, I asked someone to speak the lyrics of the song," Murphy tells Spinner. "Rather than try to interpret too much or too literally the idea of England, which is vaguely what all 12 films are about, I focused on the sound of the song itself which has a melancholic, tragic lilt to it, like a resigned love song of acceptance."

The video features an array of characters set to the auditory backdrop of a woman screaming from a minaret, her voice cracking in and out of Harvey's short cries.

"The images come from observations made on the road," Murphy says. "The archer I found in a field I was driving past. The parrot was in a great dock pub in Birkenhead, across the Mersey from Liverpool. Bobby Moore and the World Cup in 1966 was in a kebab place in Southend. The white-haired man is a charismatic horseman from Norfolk."

"Shooting Polly up close physically, allowing her to move in and out of focus was something we both liked -- it lent an intimate and raw feel," he adds. "The audio of the Arab woman singing that ends the film was the original ending of that piece of music, but edited out for the album."

'Let England Shake' is available now via Vagrant. Harvey will tour in the US and Europe starting April 14 at the Warfield in San Francisco.

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