"It would stretch out then coil, ready to strike, then stretch out and coil again. I said, 'Right, next time it stretches I'm going to go for it.' It started to stretch out and I just leapt on top of it with both hands behind its head, my knee on its back and the other chaps piled on behind me. It was a struggle for the first 30 seconds or so as it tried to move its head from side to side. It tried to scratch at us then Ash, the head guide, came round the front and grabbed it by the jaws as I lifted it up—wrapping its jaws [...]

This just in: A new PJ Harvey song from her forthcoming album Let England Shake, which comes out next February. The song is a half-spiky, half-spacey track that finds Harvey exploring the upper register of her voice the way she did on White Chalk; it is called "Written On The Forehead," and it's definitely not what I expected after hearing other songs she'd been working on. (A sampling of artists/labels name-checked by friends who'd heard the track: Deerhunter, Cocteau Twins, the Knife, Kate Bush, "early 4AD," "almost Stones Throw.") But what fun would the predictable be? Stream after the jump.

Nestled in the extremely heartening announcement that Polly Jean Harvey could be releasing a follow-up to 2007's White Chalk early next year was a clip of "The Last Living Rose," a new song that she premiered live last year at the Camp Bestival fest. Why it took so long for a new PJ Harvey song to make its way to someone who considers herself a pretty big fan of the performer in question is a matter that will likely be part of my endless ruminations about the unwieldy nature of "keeping up" in an era where there is simply too much media, and how the resulting glut leads to [...]