Remember me
The UK artist is back with her first new music in three years
Photo by Steve Gullick
PJ Harvey has shared a new song, titled ‘Voyager’.
The standalone single arrives three years on from the release of the UK artist’s last album, I Inside the Old Year Dying. Recorded with a full orchestra at Miraval Studios in Provence, ‘Voyager’ takes its name from the NASA probes launched in 1977. Having already been the early demo period, Harvey finished the the track after physicist Professor Brian Cox invited her to write a song for his tour.
In a statement, the artist said: “I was excited for the challenge to compose a song in the ‘voice’ of Voyager 2. I have long been fascinated by the spacecraft and its journey, and asked myself what it might say to us if it could? This was an inspiring route to take to develop the song.
“The song had already started life as part of the ongoing work towards my new album, so when Professor Brian Cox invited me to write a piece for his new show, I sent him the voice memo of this song to see if it resonated. It immediately made him think of the Voyager craft and the sound of its signal being sent back to Earth. With these ideas as my starting point I let the song develop, and discussed an orchestral accompaniment with Dario Marianelli.
“I’m very happy with the end result, and it’s wonderful to hear the orchestral score bring such expansiveness to my music. I thoroughly enjoyed researching the history and journey of Voyager 1 and 2, and was glad to be able to quote the great Carl Sagan within the song, and his famous description of our fragile and beautiful ‘pale blue dot’.”
Watch the video for ‘Voyager’ below.
‘Voyager’ is out now on Partisan.