New Music: PJ Harvey & John Parish

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It’s hard to believe that it’s been 16 years since English rocker PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me shared a “for my walkman on the bus ride to work” cassette with Nirvana’s In Utero. That was a good tape, if a little emotionally rough for 7:30am. I was going to say that since then, Harvey’s never quite reached for the explosive energy of early tracks like “50 Foot Queenie,” and this track opens with a mellow tempo and languid guitar riff, but then the chorus kicks in with devastating lyrical candor and melodic tension, and I’m not so sure. “I’d like to take you to a place I know,” she declares, as the guitars rear up behind her, “my black hearted.” There’s a Sonic Youth-y balance of melancholy and squealing noise here (thanks to longtime collaborator Parish, who wrote the music) as well as the off-kilter, shambolic rhythm of Pavement’s “Rattled by the Rush,” but no-one has a voice like Polly, knife-edged and perfect, intoning, “I think I saw you / In the shadow.” Aaagh, okay, yes, yes you did, that was me, sorry.

Harvey’s new album, A Woman A Man Walked By, comes out March 30 on Island. “Black Hearted Love” is on iTunes or listen below.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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