John Parish first hit public consciousness as a collaborator with
PJ Harvey, co-producing and playing on
To Bring You My Love and
Is This Desire? While he subsequently staked out an enigmatic solo career, the tale of his rise in music is entwined with that of
Harvey. Raised in Yeovil, England,
Parish's first recording experience came with a new wave band called Thieves Like Us in 1980. Following that, he started the group Headless Horseman, which evolved into Automatic Dlamini, an experimental band that would survive into the early '90s -- and that would eventually include
Harvey.
Parish also began his producing career in the mid-'80s, working with acts such as
the Becketts,
the Brilliant Corners, and Grape. In 1987, Automatic Dlamini member
Jeremy Hogg met the young
PJ Harvey at a party. The group made fast friends with her, who gave some tapes of her songs to
Parish. She was soon added to the band, staying on until 1991. After Automatic Dlamini broke up,
Parish went on to produce more albums and serve as a college lecturer.
In the meantime,
PJ Harvey had released two successful albums. She had worked with producer
Steve Albini previously, but was looking for a new sound, so she enlisted
Parish's help. The result, 1995's
To Bring You My Love, was her biggest success to date and initiated a fruitful collaboration between the two. Besides working on
Harvey's albums, the two also released a duo album, 1996's
Dance Hall at Louse Point, on which
Harvey added vocals and lyrics to compositions that
Parish had initially devised for a theater production.
Parish's first "solo" release came in 1998 with the soundtrack to the film
Rosie. He also contributed to albums by acts such as
Sparklehorse,
Giant Sand,
16 Horsepower, and
the Eels. 2002 saw the release of
Parish's second solo effort,
How Animals Move, a highly experimental work that featured sound snippets, lush orchestrations by a 12-piece band, and such ephemera as field recordings of Spanish girls singing and murmured conversation serving as vocals.
Harvey and
Giant Sand's
Howe Gelb appeared on the album, which was released on Thrill Jockey. The much more stripped-down effort,
Once Upon a Little Time, was issued in September 2005. He produced Tom Brosseau's Cavalier in 2007, as well as
Harvey's White Chalk in 2007 and played select dates on that tour. The next year he produced I Milanesi Ammazzano il Sabato by Italian indie rockers Afterhours. In 2009, A Woman a Man Walked By, his second collaboration with
Harvey, was released. That same year he produced and played on Jennie Devoe's Strange Sunshine. He composed and recorded the feature film score for She, A Chinese in 2010, and co-produced and played on
Harvey's Mercury Prize-winning Let England Shake in 2011. In the spring of 2013, Thrill Jockey released Screenplay, a collection of
Parish's film music.
–
Erik Hage, Rovi