Mick Harvey

WAVES OF ANZAC / THE JOURNEY – OUT NOW

HIS FIRST SOUNDTRACK RELEASE IN OVER 10 YEARS

“Mournful, lyrical, angry works for piano, strings and voices

haunted with the ghosts of dispossessed and the dead” – MOJO 4/5*

MICK HARVEY’s first soundtrack release in over 10 years, Waves of ANZAC / The Journey, is out now on Mute: https://mute.ffm.to/MH-WOA

The album features two recent soundtracks to films with powerful subject matters. The first, Waves of ANZAC looks at Sam Neill’s personal family history interwoven with the history of the First World War and the ANZACs through to the modern era while the second, The Journey, is a four-part composition released in support of #KidsOffNauru, a campaign working for the child refugees and people seeking asylum who find themselves in offshore detention.

Waves of ANZAC is represented by 13 tracks selected from the score for the ABC documentary on forgotten war stories and lives lost. The documentary is a personal history by the actor Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, The Piano) set against a contemporary increasingly divided political backdrop. ‘Why ANZAC? with Sam Neill’ (Dir. Kriv Stenders, 2015) is named for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who served together in the Gallipoli Campaign, their first engagement in World War I and continued as a military unit until after WW2. The film is a look at this pivotal point in our shared history, and the impact it still has on a personal and on a geopolitical level. Harvey recently examined this period via the prism of a fictional soldier/poet for his collaboration with Christopher Richard Barker, The Fall and Rise of Edgar Bourchier and the Horrors of War.


The Journey is a four-part composition, recorded with The Letter String Quartet, in support of people seeking asylum who have found themselves in Australia’s offshore detention program. The piece was composed as a study of the hardships endured by the detainees on Nauru, Manus Island and Christmas Island before and during their internment and as an expression of hope for a humane outcome to their plight. 


Waves of ANZAC / The Journey was composed, arranged and produced by Mick Harvey and mastered by Loki Lockwood at Creepy Hollow. Full list of players below.


Mick Harvey is a founding member of The Birthday Party, Crime and the City Solution and The Bad Seeds and has collaborated extensively with PJ Harvey, Rowland S Howard and Anita Lane. His solo releases began in 1995 with the first in a series of Serge Gainsbourg interpretations and translations which he recently revived with two acclaimed releases in 2016 and 2017. Harvey has been scoring film and television since 1988’s ‘Ghosts… of the Civil Dead’ (Dir. John Hillcoat) and a collection of his soundtrack work – featuring music from ‘Chopper’ (Dir. Andrew Dominik, 2000), the award-winning soundtracks for ‘Australian Rules’ (Dir. Paul Goldman, 2002) and ‘Suburban Mayhem’ (Dir. Paul Goldman, 2006) and more – was released by Mute in 2006.

CD / DIGITAL TRACKLISTING

After The Bomb (from The Last Time I Saw You)

Turkish Theme (from Waves of ANZAC)

Waves of ANZAC (from Waves of ANZAC)

Archives (from Waves of ANZAC)

First Anniversary (from Waves of ANZAC)

The Lovells (from Waves of ANZAC)

The Somme (from Waves of ANZAC)

Poppies (from Waves of ANZAC)

In The Archives (from Waves of ANZAC)

The Cemetery (from Waves of ANZAC)

Modern War (from Waves of ANZAC)

Vietnam (from Waves of ANZAC)

Crete (from Waves of ANZAC)

Back at Kiatora (from Waves of ANZAC)

Waves of ANZAC (Reprise) (from Waves of ANZAC)

The Arch (from Waves of ANZAC)

Return to ANZAC Cove (from Waves of ANZAC)

100 Years On (from Waves of ANZAC)

The Build-up (from Iron Spyder)

The Aftermath (from Waves of ANZAC)

The Ladies Room (from The Last Time I Saw You)

Part 1: Conflict (from The Journey – with The Letter String Quartet)

Part 2: All at Sea (from The Journey – with The Letter String Quartet)

Part 3: Capture (Not Real Refugees) (from The Journey – with The Letter String Quartet)

Part 4: Hope (from The Journey – with The Letter String Quartet)

PLAYERS

WAVES OF ANZAC

String section* – Bronwyn Henderson (violin), Lizzy Welsh (violin), Biddy Connor (Viola), Julitha Ryan (Cello) *except ‘The Lovells’ and ‘Back at Kiatora’.

Rosie Westbrook – Double Bass on ‘The Somme’

Bronwyn Henderson – featured violin on ‘Turkish Theme’ and ‘Return to ANZAC Cove’

All other instruments by Mick Harvey.

THE JOURNEY – with The Letter String Quartet

The Letter String Quartet: Steph O’Hara (Violin), Lizzy Welsh (violin), Biddy Connor (viola), Zoë Barry (Cello)

Mick Harvey – Piano, Organ and Percussion

‘THE LAST TIME I SAW YOU’ AND ‘IRON SPYDER’
Nylon Chalk Guitar & Violin on ‘The Build-up’, ‘The Aftermath’ and ‘The Ladies Room’ – J.P. Shilo
All other instruments by Mick Harvey          

RECENT PRAISE

Mick Harvey and Christopher Richard Barker – The Fall and Rise of Edgar Bourchier and the Horrors of War (2018)

“Undeniably esoteric but the adventurous will be rewarded” – Q magazine

“… a compelling listen” – Soundblab

“… a series of truly brilliant songs that equate with [Harvey’s] best material.”- Allmusic

Mick Harvey – Intoxicated Women (2017)

“Entrancing” 4* – MOJO

“Delightful” 4* – Uncut

“Superb” 4* – Q

Mick Harvey – Delirium Tremens (2016)

“a revelation and a joy” – The Guardian

“Harvey is a cool, calm, plainspoken singer; his true voice has always come through his sense of arrangement, and his ability to render exquisite beauty and apocalyptic clamor with the same brushstroke.” – Pitchfork

“…there is an energy that comes from the confidence of experience… Harvey makes each song here his own.” – The Quietus

Listen to the album: https://mute.ffm.to/MH-WOA

http://www.mickharvey.com/

www.mute.com