The Shock Doctrine

White Chalk

White Chalk, P.J. Harvey's first studio album in three years, is quite a marvel. I've been listening to it on repeat for the past two days and can't get the title song out of my head. The album is rife with stark piano lines and high register singing reminiscent of a child ghost singing haunting lullabies. One particular song, "When Under Ether," conjures images of a Victorian woman ala the main character in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, who is going under ether and possibly dying as she holds the hand of a woman by the side of her bed. I imagine a woman much like the Harvey on the cover of the album, wearing a long white dress, dying in the throes of childbirth or dementia. White Chalk is the perfect soundtrack to my attempts to write a lesson plan for a class in Gothic literature. Not to sound trite, but it is so much about ghosts, yearning, transgression and sexual awakening, which all happen to be major tropes of the gothic. There is also pirate cabaret sound to songs like "The Devil" and a couple of others. What a fucking fantastic album.