I'm Ann Powers, Critic and Correspondent for NPR Music, and today I'm here to share a conversation

I had with the one and only Pauline Harvey, truly one of my favorite artists of all time.

She's one of the most adventurous musicians out there.

In fact, to call her simply a musician, it's inaccurate.

She's a visual artist, she's a multi-disciplinary performer, she's worked in theater, film,

and video.

She's published two books of poetry, including Orlamb, the story of a nine-year-old girl

named Ira Able that's told in part in the native dialect of Harvey's Dorset region

and published last year.

PJ Harvey's brand new album, I Inside the Old Year Dying, further illuminates the world

that Orlamb brought to the page.

The album is co-produced by her longtime collaborators, Flood and John Parrish, and it sounds so good.

It's out this week.

Harvey recently spoke with me from her home in Dorset.

The song that opens the new album is called Prayer at the Gate.

It has this line, the line is Speak Your Wordal to Me.

Now Americans might find that funny, because Wordal is a popular puzzle that I play every

day.

But in the Dorset dialect, Wordal means world.

And Pauli, it occurs to me that the line describes what you've done with this album, and

with the book Orlamb and with the drawings that you've made, depicting the landscapes

where these stories take place.

...