PJ Harvey returns with new music and opens a new chapter in his artistic journey. The English singer-songwriter released “Voyager”, a song inspired by the historic Voyager 1 and 2 probes launched by NASA in 1977 and still traveling in interstellar space today. Accompanying the release is a video directed by physicist, television commentator and musician Brian Cox, who played a decisive role in the birth of the project. The song was already in development as part of the material for PJ Harvey's next album when Cox asked her for input on his “Emergence” show. From that comparison emerged the idea of connecting the song to the Voyager probes and their signals sent towards Earth. “I have long been fascinated by this spaceship and its journey, and have wondered what it might tell us if it could talk,” explained the Dorset artist.
The piece was recorded with an orchestra at Miraval Studios, in Provence, with arrangements by composer Dario Marianelli. “I am very happy with the final result and it is wonderful to hear how the orchestral score has given such breadth to my music – said the singer-songwriter of “To Bring You My Love” I really enjoyed delving into the history and journey of Voyager 1 and 2 and I was happy to be able to quote the great Carl Sagan within the song, together with his famous description of our fragile and beautiful pale blue dot“, the faint blue dot that is the Earth as it appears in a famous photograph taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 probe.
Listen to “Voyager” by PJ Harvey below.
The imagery of the song is also linked to the famous Voyager Golden Record, the record created by astronomer Carl Sagan to tell the history and culture of the Earth to possible extraterrestrial life forms. In the text, Harvey also mentions the concept of the “pale blue dot”, the “faint blue dot” with which Sagan described our planet observed by Voyager 1 in deep space.
“Voyager” represents PJ Harvey's first unreleased song after a period dedicated to writing new songs and a book of poems. The last recording project released dates back to 2024, when together with Tim Phillips he created a version of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” for the television series “Bad Sisters 2”. In the meantime, the long tour of “I Inside The Old Year Dying” had ended, which for two years took the musician to the stages of Europe, Australia and Japan (here is the live report of the Belfast date).
With “Voyager”, PJ Harvey once again intertwines literary suggestions, scientific reflections and sound research, transforming the journey of the NASA probes into a poetic meditation on the fragility of the Earth and humanity's place in the universe.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
