New Joanna Newsom Album "Ys" Due Nov 14

I've always hated her voice but respected her. I want so much to like it but 9 minutes of NON stop singing about bears and monkeys just drives me insane

My biggest problem with Ys is the orchestration, which either distracts from her harp/voice (at best) or overwhelms her (at worst). At first I liked the strings quite a bit, but with subsequent listens they became an obstruction to divining the words and underlying shapes of the pieces. They blunt the drama. The dynamics would be more evident if the songs weren't slathered over with those damn strings buzzing in and out of the mix like dragonflies. The inorganic recording process may also be a factor - if it had been recorded live with an orchestra there might be a more integrated sense of dynamics.

Granted, I have heard these tracks unadorned on live recordings however I made a concerted effort to evaluate the album on its own terms. After many listens, I find "Sawdust & Diamonds," the only unaccompanied piece, to be the most affecting. I can pinpoint this moment of clarity - I was listening to the album while doing some repair work in the house, and it was fine background music until "Sawdust & Diamonds" came on. Without realizing it, I had come to a complete stop in order to pay full attention to the song. I was transfixed. The sun was setting through the window; what had been mere background music had now transformed housework into a cinematic moment.

There's something hypnotic in her rhythms - it's the audio equivalent of watching a gyroscope spin. Being mesmerized by her playing while she unloads a river of images makes for pretty heady stuff. But on the other tracks, the harp has such a pale + airy tone that the urgency of her playing tends to be lost in the symphonic arrangements. The elegant sweep of movements in "Only Skin" are flattened into sequential morasses of sound. To give a specific instance, the cascasding runs during the "rolling along, among the reeds among the rushes" segment have less of an impact because of the accompanying orchestral surge.

It's a shame; obviously a lot of thought/planning/work went into the orchestration. I don't think the entire burden can be laid on Van Dyke Parks; the arrangements were a collaborative effort (Newsom was a composition major for a while, so I imagine charts aren't a mystery to her). I'd love to hear the raw Albini masters, though, prior to the orchestral overdubs.

All that said, it's still head and shoulders above anything else I've heard this year.

Interesting, though. I think the orchestral arrangements *add* quite a lot to the songs, they change their nature. Not surprisingly, "Sawdust & Diamonds" is the only track that hasn't made much of an impression on me. Something like "Only Skin," on the other hand, is absolutely fascinating.

I can see how someone could say that the arrangements are nice, but it's too much of the same type of texture or vibe or sound for the whole record. It's almost *too consistent*. But I guess it's supposed to be an American song cycle, ala Van Dyke Parks. Or something like that.

It's a bold record---a huge leap for Joanna---and many people will hate it. But there will be new more serious fans. I do think that the average Joe fan that latched on to her last album will be totally lost on this one.

But yeah, Rihm doesn't have one single approach like, say, Boulez or Carter. He's more of a impressionist or collage artist, like Schnittke (but without the humour). What I heard sounded really dull, but I'll give "Jagden und Formen" a try. Any suggestions?

By Joseph Stevenson: "He tends to follow the 12-tone system as used by Anton Webern, Luigi Nono, the later composers William Killmayer and Helmuth Lachenmann, as well as being influenced by the music of Stockhausen and Morton Feldman." Jan Swafford says something similar.

Hmm. So what I heard a long time ago WAS twelve-tone, though, of course, not in the sense of strictly serial music like Webern or Boulez.

So, yeah. Wolfgang Rihm is a bit academic. He was a student of Stockhausen so... obviously some influence there. I'm not really into him personally (now that I'm re-listening to some of his works) and I haven't heard any of his non-twelve tone music.. if there *is* any.

I'm not saying Vespertine doesn't have more than a couple of slack, draggy moments (Undo, Harm Of Will) but right through there's a clear & direct emotional signal, even the soppy bits. With Joanna it's very often just a chore to hear it through all the games and the hint of incredulity/ridiculousness in her narratives.

That said, I'm not giving up on this (or at least not deleting) yet, my first playthrough was real cynicism busting stuff, and far easier & efficient than I'd anticipated, the songs do have momentum but everything since has been a right old slog.

That's exactly how the strings on Vespertine sound to me. Oh, well.

Probably not, but it is the best-selling record in Drag City history, apparently.

Ditto. In fact, I generally don't care for lyrics, but I like how she's overtly poetic without coming off as self-consciously clever. It's almost e. e. cummings-like, at moments.

The strings... man, it all comes across so piped after a while, less cinematic than just blandly romantic, the comment about the recording process upthread could well be the most OTM comment in this thread.

And hmmm "without coming off as self-consciously clever" Oh god, I wish that were true because I'm just finding it slightly amusing, but not actually very entertaining, or all that intellectually stimulating and certainly not a whole lot of fun.

Newsom's a harpy. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Correction. *Pretentious* baby talk.

It's not that I have a low attention span it's just that I begin to stop caring after too long. Monkey and Bear makes me wince too, despite having some of the most engaging and vivid language on here late in that track, overall I find it kind of embarrasing, but then I'm not one for prog much tbh.

If there's an ongoing story running through the whole record I haven't quite worked it out so far though.

http://www.fromamouth.com/milkymoon/lyrics.htm

does this mean what i think it does?

CRITIC/SCHOLAR? More like a HYPE MACHINE.

Actually, Tim, we did once meet at La Mesa. Granted, I don't "know" you, but the consensus was that your sexist cracks and "wigga" jokes didn't exactly endure you to anyone.

*of course academics/freelancers is only a job description, it doesn't say anything about the quality of the music that has been written.

At least we get to listen to the finished product and decide it's tough going. Must have been a buggr to transcribe!

But, yeah if rubbing in your "superior" knowledge on the subject in a cocky way (and completely missing my point in the process) makes you feel any better about yourself, go ahead.