If Polly Jean Harvey is the "obvious outcome of three decades of rock and feminism" as Rolling Stone magazine gushed last year, then where does that leave Patti Smith, Courtney Love and Sinead O'Connor? Probably smuggly indifferent to the raven-haired daughter of Dorset, whose compelling weirdness may have made her a sub-iconic figure but has also limited her commercial popularity. Not that sales figures would ever bother Polly Jean Harvey, for her dilemmas are more socio-political in make-up and are usually fixated around the distorted and distorting role of gender. Girl Power inc. and its myriad merchandising deals is not, one can safely assume, one of her primary concerns. Unfairly described as the female wing of Nick Cave nouveau miserablism, Harvey's Dylanesque lyrics, coupled with liberal lashings of classicism and mysticism a la early Kate Bush, have set her at a considerable distance from the designer-angst of Alanis Morrissette and her fellow sobbing sisters. Also, they have earned her a place in the homogenised rock world as a unique and maverick performer.
From her slash 'n' burn debut album Dry (1992) through to her new album, Is This Desire? she has learnt that sometimes the world can turn its shoulder to those who dwell in emotional extremes - particularly when they flaunt them between the grooves of a record.
Managed by U2's Paul McGuinness, Harvey was born in the depths of Thomas Hardy country, Yeovil, 29 years ago. Her parents were a sculptor and a quarryman and she was raised on a steady diet of Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker - such was her mother's taste. Turning down the offer of a place in art college, she "messed around" with music for a while before landing a deal with Island Records. Since then she has become, willingly or unwillingly, the conscience of female rock music.
She has just done some singing lessons and finished a bout of therapy, and the singing on the new album seems a lot purer and confident than previous outings - true or false? "Well, since the last album I've been doing a lot of personal growth and finding my inner child and things like that," she says of her new, improved persona. "I have been doing a lot of work on myself as a person and I think I'm probably at the age where everybody starts to look at that or starts to look inside a bit more. You know, it won't be long till I'm 30 and then you start thinking just what is life all about? And so you do a bit of digging and for my part I've unearthed a lot of unpleasant things and a lot of pleasant things and I think all that comes across in the new songs. And in my voice, I think I can say for the first time in my life that I'm singing with a voice that is my own, which is Polly - I'm not wearing a mask or playing a part."
Any personal favourites on the album? "There are some that feel very, very open and very vulnerable. But by being at your most vulnerable you're also as protected as you can be in some ways. I don't know, it's like that phrase, `what you see is what you get' and on this album, a song called Catherine I find very moving, again and again and a song like The Garden just touches me deeply."
How about touring these songs, or are you more of a studio animal? "I've always loved playing live. There's nothing that's more in the moment of being. With all the excitement of a show, the excitement of seeing an audience enjoying what you are doing, you're really giving something and they're giving back - it's so beautiful. "It's like I want to show how it is. I've got to do that with my own body. I think of those performers I really admire, like Nick Cave and Iggy Pop, people I'm absolutely mesmerised by and when they inhabit a stage, it's theirs and theirs alone."
Away from the music, Harvey made her acting debut in the new Hal Hartley film, Book of Life which is about Jesus arriving in New York on the eve of the new millennium. A different beat? "I've always been stunned by Hal Hartley's work," (Hartleys films include Trust, Amateur and The Unbelievable Truth), "and he's used my songs in his films before and I'd always joke with him asking him for a big role in one of his films. Then he rings me up and asks me to play a sort of Mary Magdalene part in Book of Life. I'm with Jesus as his kind of bodyguard-cum-secretary-cum-girlfriend. It was an absolutely fascinating experience and I was surprised at how rewarding I found it.
"Before, I'd always thought that music was the only way that could satisfy part of me, but I found acting was filling that place in some way which has led me to really want to look into acting more but if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it well and I'd want to study acting and take some lessons.
"There are some musicians that have bridged the acting gap that I really admire and Courtney Love is one. I was also very lucky in working with Hal in that he knows exactly what he wants - you know, he's going: `Take two steps over here, you look at a 90 degree angle, say your line and then look over there, count to two beats and look over there and move three paces forward.' It was like learning dance steps!"
To date, Harvey's biggest chart success remains her duet with Nick Cave on the song Henry Lee - the two also had a relationship, the break-up of which Cave chronicled in some detail on his Boatman's Call album. "With Nick, I find his music and mine follow similar paths and we're both interested in exploring similar troubles and similar joys. We're very similar people and he's now one of my closest friends, someone who understands me and I think, you know, I'm the same for him. Working together on that track was just a very natural thing to do." How did you feel about having your relationship turned into one of his albums? "I knew the songs were about me, I didn't mind."
Harvey's new album arrives complete with rumours about record company interventions (to try to make it more commercial) and about her health - it has been said that she's suffering from anorexia - something Harvey denies, saying: "I've always been small."
Obviously, her record company would like her to breach the divide between cult artist and household name, but it's highly unlikely Is This Desire? will facilitate this process. Wilfully uncommercial, with shades of off-kilter trip-hop and distorted guitar and keyboard sounds, sometimes she seems set on doing with her career what her near-neighbour and sometime collaborator Tricky has done with his - waving two fingers to mainstream success.
When she talks about her collaboration with Tricky, Polly Harvey might just as well be talking about herself: "He has what I admire in other artists which is that he doesn't seem too scared to try out anything he wants to try, no matter how revolting it sounds or how uncommercial it sounds. It's like he's following his own path and for me as an artist that's the most important thing to do, in fact it's the only thing to do."
P. J. Harvey's Is This Desire is on the Island label.