Mick Harvey
One Man's Treasure

No need to beat around the bush, because sometimes things are truly very simple. In this case, it takes little to understand that "One Man's Treasure" (Mute - 2005) is a beautiful album from several points of view: heartfelt interpretations, warm voice, passionate vitality, sophisticated choices, tension, stylistic coherence, heart. In a few words, these might be the elements characterizing this solo work by Mick Harvey, formerly a member of "The Birthday Party" and "The Bad Seeds".
However, if I had to complicate my life in search of adjectives to describe it, I'd say right away that I found it touching, because it appeared to me as a very personal, intimate, emotional work. Yes, because listening, I got the impression that with this music Harvey intended to share his world of emotions with us, which he first recounted to himself. And this world seems quieter and more isolated than it might have been a few years ago, when with his longtime friend Nick Cave, he battled excesses, here partly evoked by the desolate, dark, and evocative "Demon Alcohol".
His early solo albums seem truly distant now, and today, eight years after "Pink Elephants" and ten years after "Intoxicated Man", recorded together with Anita Lane to pay tribute to the cursed songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, Harvey bares himself to those who listen and seems to simply say: "Hey Man, after 25 years of career I'd like to say that these are songs that mean a lot to me, what do you think?". And what can we think, Mick? Simply that they are splendid songs, thanks from the heart.

However, they don't all belong to Mick Harvey. Of the twelve that make up the album, he wrote only two ("Man Without a Home" and "Will You Surrender"), while the remaining are covers by different authors. Among these, naturally, could not miss Nick Cave for whom Harvey offers a delicate version of "Come Into My Sleep". But the other names are not so obvious. We find JJ Walker ("Louise"), Jeffrey Lee Pierce ("Mother Of The Heart"), etc.
Practically a collection of classics from Harvey's musical upbringing. All intense, alive, sometimes piercing. But probably the most beautiful passage of the album is represented by the profound rendition of "The River" by Tim Buckley, which Harvey sings conveying alternating feelings of gloom and sensitivity.

Musically, country-rock sounds are found, developed mainly by guitars, piano, drums, and strings. An example is "First St. Blues": introduced by the piano and a very light acoustic guitar, it immediately strikes the heart with its subdued atmosphere in which Mick Harvey's warm and slightly tormented voice inserts itself, accompanying the notable emotional crescendo dictated by the sound of the strings in the background. This nocturnal and somewhat bitter song by Lee Hazelwood is absolutely splendid, a true masterpiece, and I like to consider it the musical manifesto of this album. Certainly, sometimes Mick Harvey's voice becomes heavier or clearer, other times an electric guitar appears from the darkness, but the sense doesn't change much.
So let's close the circle because it's truly unnecessary to make much ado: for me, it's a great album, and if someone doesn't like it, perhaps because it's too introspective, well... too bad for them.