John Parish

How Animals Move is the second record released by John Parish under his name. His first was 1999's Rosie, which was the original soundtrack to Belgian director Patrice Toye’s film of the same name. That same year Parish's score won the Special Jury Prize at the Bonn International Film Music Biennale. Although known to many for his collaborations with PJ Harvey, Parish has spent a considerable amount of time composing and arranging music on his own. As well from 1991-1994 he served as lecturer in the music program at Yeovil College in England, specializing in performance & recording techniques. While at Yeovil he wrote two original scores for touring college productions, which makes perfect sense when listening to How Animals Move’s elegant songs as they have the feeling of a soundtrack to an as yet unmade film.
John spent his early musical career in Automatic Dlamini releasing two albums and a handful of singles through various independent labels. In 1986 he "accidentally" became a producer after helping neighbors The Chesterfields record their debut EP, which became a UK chart hit. The calls started coming- most notably from former Automatic Dlamini bandmate PJ Harvey. This relationship would turn out to be his most fruitful, placing John squarely on the map as a producer and musician. Together with PJ Harvey, John served as a co-producer and featured musician (guitar, bass, keys and percussion) for her landmark album To Bring You My Love (Island 1995). He was again a featured musician on the follow up Is This Desire? (Island 1998) and was a mainstay of the PJ Harvey touring band between the years of ’95 to ’99. In 1996 he wrote the music and played all the instruments for Dance Hall at Louse Point (Island) a collaboration between the two which was credited under both their names. As a producer and contributor, John has been involved in some of the most critically acclaimed albums of the past few years including Sparklehorse's It's A Wonderful Life, Goldfrapp's Felt Mountain and Giant Sand’s Chore Of Enchantment. In 2001 John again donned the hat of writer, producer and musician for the Eels and their landmark album Souljacker (Dreamworks), recently named as album of the year by Time magazine. He later went on to play guitar with the Eels during their world tour from July – December of that same year.
How Animals Move was recorded over an extended period of time in various studios and non-studios around the world. The range from the solo violin piece of "absolute beauty is an absolute curse" played by Clare Mactaggart to the title track which is a live recording of Parish's occasional 11 piece band featuring Portishead's Adrian Utley and slide guitarist Jeremy Hogg. The bulk of the record’s 13 tracks are instrumental, but vocal contributions from Does De Wolf, David Donahue, who also supplied lyrics to two songs, and long time accomplice Polly Harvey are pleasantly dispersed throughout. The quality of the instrumental tracks and the linear flow of the album are a testament to the compositional abilities of John Parish. That they should be recorded and played with such elegant restraint should be no surprise coming from this humble and quiet Bristol based family man. How Animals Move will certainly shift the spotlight towards one that has for too long remained in the shadows.