Joanna Newsom
“Ys”
Drag City Records
As someone who lists Tool, Mastodon and the Mars Volta among his
favorite bands, I never thought in a million years that I would
like an artist who sounds like Lisa Simpson imitating Bjork while
playing a harp.
Similes like this are usually exaggerations that music critics
throw around, but with respect to Joanna Newsom’s latest
release, “Ys,” it may be the most accurate description
possible.
Belting her one-of-a-kind vocals in front of what could only be
defined as an orgy of string instruments, Newsom fulfills the
promise she showed on 2004’s “The Milk-Eyed
Mender.” Even more remarkably, “Ys” was recorded
entirely using analog equipment, with aid from indie gods Jim
O’Rourke and Steve Albini.
The result is a mind-blowing folk epic and a solid contender for
album of the year.
“Ys” opens with “Emily,” the best song
on the record. The song sets the tone for what the rest of the
album has in store for listeners in both its length (over 12
minutes) and its scope. “Emily” is “Lord of the
Rings”-level intense, with Newsom singing of meteorites as
sources of light, meadowlarks, chim-choo-rees and sparrows.
In keeping with the album’s scope, Newsom’s
trademark harp is joined by the string arrangements of Van Dyke
Parks, Brian Wilson’s collaborator on “Smile.”
Over the course of its 55 minutes, the album uses everything from
harps to cellos to violins to almost every stringed instrument you
could imagine. At one point in “Emily,” a banjo can
even be heard.
The Bjork comparison is also apt, particularly in the middle of
the album when Newsom warbles less and sounds more like the
Icelandic songstress than ever.
Lyrically, “Ys” is more dense than a box of
Grape-Nuts. Newsom rarely stops singing and at times nearly lapses
into spoken-word poetry, Tom Waits-style (her voice being the utter
opposite of Waits’ growls). The lyrics to “Monkey &
Bear” resemble a children’s bedtime story, with Newsom
yelping, “”˜Did you hear that, Bear?’ said Monkey
/ ‘We’ll get out of here, fair and square /
They’ve left the gate open wide!'”
Some might cringe at the running times of the songs (on
“Ys,” eight minutes is brief) and the fact that there
are only five tracks, but the sheer wonder and complexity of the
lyrics and arrangements can’t help but make you smile.
“Ys” could be described as the “Frances the
Mute” of folk in part because, like that album, reactions to
it will be extreme.
You owe it to yourself to listen to “Ys,” if only so
you can walk around squealing, “Oh, my darlin,'”
in a five-year-old girl’s voice.