The Desert Sessions - Crawl Home (PJ Harvey & Josh Homme)

2003

The Desert Sessions - Crawl Home (PJ Harvey & Josh Homme) (2003) Director: Hal Hartley Era: Post-Grunge Alt-Rock Crossover Era (2003) - Peak of early-2000s indie-rock prestige collaborations, bridging US desert-rock and UK art-rock at the height of the post-millennial alternative boom High curatorial value as a rare artifact uniting three distinct cultural spheres, US desert rock, UK art-rock, and American independent cinema, in a single three-minute document. Hartley's directorial involvement gives the video a credibility and aesthetic distinctiveness rare in the genre, and its Brooklyn-shot urban realism contrasts pointedly with the Californian desert mythology of the Desert Sessions brand. The Enhanced CD and VHS distribution formats make it a notable transitional-era media object. Context: Released in late 2003 as the lead single from Desert Sessions Volumes 9 & 10 (Island/Universal), 'Crawl Home' represents a rare transatlantic alt-rock super-collaboration between Josh Homme, then ascending to mainstream prominence via Queens of the Stone Age, and PJ Harvey, one of the UK's most critically lauded art-rock artists. The video, directed by Hal Hartley, brought an American independent cinema sensibility to the music video form at a moment when the post-Nirvana alternative boom was giving way to a more fragmented, prestige-minded indie landscape. Hartley's involvement, whose film soundtracks had long featured PJ Harvey's music, signals a meaningful creative overlap between the American indie film and rock worlds circa 2003. Director notes: The 'Crawl Home' video was shot in Brooklyn, New York, by Hal Hartley approximately two weeks before the MTV News report published September 24, 2003. It was produced under Hartley's own company Possible Films in association with Yellow House Film Co. The concept, as described by Josh Homme to MTV News, involves Homme and PJ Harvey in a car whose argument escalates into physical confrontation. The video was included as bonus content on the Enhanced CD single release (Island Records CID835) and was also released as a standalone VHS (Discogs r13373422). The production reflects Hartley's signature two-person confrontational staging and naturalistic, realism-grounded visual language.