In the 60's, 70's and 80's it was customary for musicians to take a stand on current events and choose clear words - Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and CSN stand for this tradition, but also punk rockers like The Clash and Stiff Little Fingers and reggae artists like Bob Marley. But who still sings today about global grievances? Who dares to put his finger in the wounds and also to take criticism for it? Basically nobody - except a lady from the south coast of England who likes to go on a confrontation course: Polly Jean Harvey, 46 years old and a strong, fighting woman.
In 2011, she released an album in which her record company sensed commercial suicide and tried everything to talk her out of it. Because "Let England Shake" was a sharp reckoning with the British preference for wars of all kinds, which are based on the idea of a world and colonial power and run through the entire history of the island empire. The result was inevitably polarized, but also received critical acclaim and the prestigious Mercury Prize.
Now the artist goes one step further and looks from the inside to the outside, from the island to the world - and thus to the USA, which supposedly brings peace, freedom and prosperity to others. The (late) consequences were vividly demonstrated to PJ Harvey when she travelled between 2011 and 2014 with the photographer Seamus Murphy to Afghanistan, Kosovo and Washington, DC. What she saw there is the starting point for eleven pieces that do not serve any solutions, but rather primarily reflect on interrelationships and thus raise many questions. In particular, as far as the situation in American metropolises is concerned, where entire districts have become social ghettos over the years.