Album Review- Mick Harvey and Amanda Acevdeo - Phantasmagoria in Blue

Mick Harvey has had a fantastic highly under the radar career. Perhaps accomplishing the work of two or three people. Famously, he was Nick Cave’s right hand man from the beginning in the Boys Next Door and the Birthday Party and then finally the Bad Seeds up until Dig Lazarus Dig and leaving in 2009. He was also a member of Crime and the City Solution - the similarly minded Australian band in their 1985-1991 run. As notable, he has worked with PJ Harvey (no relation) and co-produced or played on five of her albums most notably Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea and Let England Shake. You can find his work when you listen to Anita Lane, Rowland S Howard or the Cruel Sea. As a solo artist, he has credited on ten albums and of these, his main work has been his four albums of Serge Gainsbourg covers. I am usually not a fan of such tributes, but I love these records. Not only do I enjoy them, but they are some of my favorite records. Harvey likely kicked off the greater appreciation for Gainsbourg in the indie community. Harvey is perfect for it- exhibiting similar vocal territory as his aforementioned peers - Cave, Howard and Simon Bonney Probably the last we heard from Harvey was his collaboration with author Christopher Richard Barker- a weird concept record about a fictional World War 1 soldier and his correspondence. It sounds pretentious but was actually one of my favorite records of 2018. He returns in 2023 with Phantasmagoria in Blue with actress/singer/filmmaker Amanda Acevedo who is making her recorded debut here. It’s a stunner of an album if you liked Harvey’s Gainsbourg records. Acevedo is a terrific foil and both voices are dramatic and striking. It’s impossible not to think of Nancy and Lee or Serge and Jane/Bridget The songs are covers from the deep well of not only Hazelwood/Sinatra, Leonard Cohen and Tim Buckley but Jackson C Frank and Silvio Rodriguez among the sources. Most strikingly is a cover of Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield” which should probably stick out like a sore thumb but folds in seamlessly to the overall product. Harvey kind of gets lost in the Cohen/Gainsbourg/Hazelwood/Walker lineage. Never quite as recognized as Cave, Tindersticks , Pulp or the many and varied artists who have used their elements in music. But Phantasmagoria in Blue is a masterful record of the genre and well recommended.