A good ear is hard to find. John Parish and PJ Harvey have relied on each other for decades, trading demos, contributing to albums, and enjoying an uncomplicated, no-holds barred ability to critique without worrying about offense. Featuring Parish’s music and Harvey’s lyrics and singing, their new album, A Woman a Man Walked By, represents only the second of two formal collaborations after half a lifetime of close partnership.
“We’re both really solitary writers. We like to experiment with things by ourselves, to get it to a certain stage, so that we can play it for somebody,” said Parish in a recent phone interview. “But we almost always play things for each other first… We’re always curious what the other thinks, because we use each other very much as sounding boards for our own work.”
