Mick Harvey & Amanda Acevedo - Perfect Storm

New Music 2026 Q2 W24

Mick Harvey & Amanda Acevedo – Perfect Storm

Mick Harvey and Amanda Acevedo are three albums into a collaboration that started when the two met in Mexico City while Harvey was on tour with PJ Harvey. “Perfect Storm” is the lead single from their forthcoming third record, “Psychedelia in White”, due September 4 on Mute, and it’s the clearest sign yet that the project has moved on from its origins in reinterpretations and covers.

The track has an unusual origin story. Acevedo wrote the lyrics after Canadian composer Peter McNestry of Pink Elephants sent her an early instrumental built around the title. The two developed it through file exchange, and once Harvey decided to include it on the album, he went back in and added guitars, sound effects and backing vocals. The result sounds like a collaboration that happened in stages across different locations, which is probably the point. There are layered synthesizer washes under Acevedo’s vocals, the production opening up and thickening as the song moves forward, the mix sitting between alt-rock and something looser and more distended. The album itself was recorded primarily in Australia and mixed in Chile by Alain Johannes.

“Psychedelia in White” is billed as the more original-writing-focused counterpart to their debut “Phantasmagoria in Blue” and its companion record “Golden Mirrors (The Uncovered Sessions Vol. 1)”. The tracklist includes songs drawing on mythology and folklore (”Medusa”, ”Atlantis”), a glam-inflected nod to Marc Bolan in ”Song for Aurora”, and covers reaching from PJ Harvey to Silvio Rodríguez to the Spanish pop group Mecano. Strings were contributed by Lizzie, Bron and Biddy; mastering by Mikey Young.

I like that Acevedo describes the song as a declaration of confidence and playfulness mixed with something dark, because you can hear both impulses in there pulling against each other. It doesn’t fully resolve either way. That tension is what keeps it interesting.