PJ Harvey, Ramy Essam To Release 'The Camp,' To Raise Funding For Displaced Lebanese Children

PJ Harvey (Seamus Murphy)

PJ HARVEY and EGYPTIAN recording artist RAMY ESSAM have written and recorded "The Camp," a track which they hope will raise awareness and support towards the health and educational well-being of displaced children in the BEKAA VALLEY of LEBANON.

"The Camp" will be available digitally on FRIDAY, JUNE 9th. HARVEY and ESSAM recorded the track in BRISTOL, U.K., with HARVEY's longtime collaborator JOHN PARISH, who produced and mixed the track, and also appears on drums and guitars. The artists will donate all net profits from the track to BEYOND ASSOCIATION in the BEKAA VALLEY, a national LEBANESE non-Governmental Organization which provides services such as access to education, healthcare, and psycho-social support mainly through art therapy, neuro-physiotherapy, and recreational activities. 

HARVEY explains how she instinctively knew that she wanted to collaborate with ESSAM; be it as a contribution to one of his ongoing projects, or something entirely new. "I began putting some ideas on paper, and sent over rough demos of two or three songs in their early forms," she recalls, with one of these songs becoming "The Camp." 

ESSAM speaks of his experiences during the revolution in the streets of EGYPT. "I dealt with fights, beating, torture and the loss of friends," adding of the unique opportunity to work with PJ HARVEY, "She is a humble person and true artist that I only could dream to even meet -- and now I'm singing with her for this important cause, for humanity, It was an honour to work with her, and I found it so inspiring. It gave me a chance to live my dream for a while."

Photographer GILES DULEY explains how his pictures came to be used for the video, "When POLLY and RAMY asked me to help provide some of the visuals for 'The Camp,' I had no difficulty in deciding what photographs we should use. In my work I have documented the effects of conflict and humanitarian disaster across the world, but little has had greater impact on me than the human drama I witnessed on the island of LESVOS in 2015. I thought I had seen it all, but I can honestly say I have never been so overwhelmed as by the human drama that I watched unfolding on those beaches. Its sheer scale was hard to comprehend; the lack of response impossible to explain or excuse. So it is those images from the beaches, and the refugees' journey from GREECE to GERMANY that we used in the video for 'The Camp."

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