New Joanna Newsom Album "Ys" Due Nov 14

can't really get with her other stuff, but Ys has gradually and steadily grown to become an all-timer for me.

She'd have been a shoe-in for the ILX pre-covers LULU -- the Lou Reed/Metallica album if she could limit herself to twelve minutes...

http://25.media.tumblr.com/98aa24920ad2605eaea23ba8f8cabef6/tumblr_mnzinlcOnG1qagxv6o4_400.jpg

uh

I love Joanna Newsom and I love that album cover, but that pic is just gruesome

too gross not to share. rip blogs.

sawdust & diamonds makes me weep like a little baby

10 years holy Christ.

i still think of this as a kind-of recent album.

i think this is the first ilx thread i ever read, wandered in trying to find the record on an mp3 blog

still my fave of hers, unbelievable album

"Sawdust & Diamonds" is the only song that makes me cry every time I hear it.

I was 21 years old when this came out and I hated it so much... it wasn’t her voice which I know it’s an acquired taste but I didn’t have any problems with it on Milk Eyed Mender, in fact it would’ve probably been one of my top 10 2014 albums if I had made a list back then.

But when Ys came out the track lenghts alone seemed terribly offputting and when I tried listening to it I realize I wasn’t prepared for what sounded like tunes for a Broadway play based on a children’s book. I’ve always had an aversion to histrionism in music and this seemed to have way too many things I hate.

Oh was I wrong... it still sounds like a soundtrack to an imaginary play to my ears and I don’t know when will I ever be in the mood and find the space and time to listen to it but this is way out there in its own universe. Sorry for being a hater before, this album was worth the hype and it’s a genuine product of love.

wow, eleven years.

album not that good (ruined by Van Dyke Parks as some suggest upthread), tour supporting it was one of the best things I have ever seen.

― sleeve, Wednesday, September 26, 2007 7:57 PM (ten years ago)

that show (with "small orchestra" 6-piece band) remains one of the best live shows I have ever seen, you could have heard a pin drop in the 400+ person venue during the extended end of "Cosmia"

where is she now I wonder? seems to have retired from music.

There’s many emotions in here but the main theme does seem to be her struggle to come to terms with mortality. The scope shifts from heartbreaking to enlightening often.

xp the divers tour was less than three years ago, i'm guessing she'll be back

Van Dyke Parks arrangements are a bit meh still but she’s on another level... imagine someone line say Nico Muhly in there..

I strongly doubt she's retired. She had a baby less than a year ago, not exactly surprising that she might take a little break. Also, there was a 5 year gap between the last 2 albums.

i love the arrangements, don't understand the dislike for them in this thread at all

It’s actually more the production than the arrangements... they sound very idk... skinny?

It's a great album, I especially love the first 3 tracks, and the live version was indeed amazing. But there is a bit of fussiness to it. I prefer the pared back, naturalistic sound of HOOM, don't expect she can top that one.

it's not that I dislike the original LP arrangements, it's that seeing the songs done live with the stripped down 6-piece really made them shine for me in a way that the regular LP versions didn't.

ha kind of an xp there

But it’s also the arrangements... they give it a Disney-fied feel... a “naked” version of Joanna and her harp would sound better imho... or at least something more subtle.

Oh sleeve that’s precisely what I wanted from this album. Is there an official or good live bootleg or even youtube performance you’d recommend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=1VuHEBxXHh4

Sawdust & Diamonds is one of the only songs that almost always makes me cry

Haaa, I just watched that one a few minutes ago. Probably my favorite song of hers. Amazing that she can tap into that emotion while simultaneously playing an absolutely bonkers, carpal tunnel inducing harp part.

It's always this verse:

I wanted to say: Why the long face?
Sparrow, perch and play songs of long face
Burro, buck and bray songs of long face!
Sing, I will swallow your sadness and eat your cold clay
Just to lift your long face;
And though it may be madness, I will take to the grave
Your precious long face
And though our bones they may break, and our souls separate —
Why the long face?
And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil —
Why the long face?

Also really love how she brought the toned down, breathy vocals to Bridges & Balloons. Somewhere between recording Ys and the tour, she really learned how to sing! It's like she suddenly upped her game considerably.

She had problems with nodules early on during the Ys tour and then again while working on Have One on Me. Had to take vocal rests and learn new techniques, so that definitely had an effect on her vocals.

I adore Ys, OTT arrangements included (even though I do enjoy the stripped down live versions, too). I was 16-17 when I first heard it and I fell in love with it almost instantly. Over the years I have tied many important memories to these songs.

22 years old

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfLfLNr7F10

an early adumbration of Ys! which is one of the most amazing albums of all time

Ys is GOAT

There's been a number of live sets by her popping up on dime over the last week or so.

Really wish she'd bring her solo show to Austin

Divers is her best album and one of the best albums I've ever heard ever in my life

Ys is the one that made me a fan and so I cherish it the most, but Divers is about equal. Divers has the best instrumentation.

Funny, I think HOOM is the best, but i love them all.

This is my current favorite Joanna Newsom story, not about her:

on line at the joanna newsom concert and bjork appears at will call with her hair in enormous buns and full velvet dress and a lavender lace mask woven with flowers and the guy at the booth asks for her ID

— Lauren Friedlander (@la_friedlander) September 16, 2019

the best part is, when asked, she patted at her pocketless velvet bodice and whispered "i...do not have it" before someone whisked her off

— Lauren Friedlander (@la_friedlander) September 16, 2019

I find it to be impossible to pick one fave, they're all extremely special to me, each in their own way.

xp lol

xxxxp Wow i had never heard that version of Sawdust.. !

The ILX massive's first taste upthread is very ILX; questioning what the Pitch4k review will be, people saying they 'get it' but don't like it, someone suggesting it's an insincere 'indie rock sham', me griping that you can't dance to any of it, some folk analysing the words before hearing the songs..

I am and was a full-bore stan for "The Milk-Eyed Mender" and I found "Ys" to be off-putting, when I downloaded it illegally as we all did.

I appreciated that Newsom, with "Ys", wished to create a "world" akin to "Song Cycle", but ironically did not think that Van Dyke Parks was the best arranger for that job, despite being.. the guy who made "Song Cycle". My feelings about "Ys" were and are more in-line with the Wire review at the time, which described Parks' arrangements as being like "Disney characters appearing and disappearing without any rhyme or reason" (paraphrased from memory, I think they were nicer about it). I adore the songs themselves, in particular "Cosmia" and "Emily", but the album itself never clicked for me.

When "Have One On Me" came out, I adored the shorter pieces, and certain longer pieces like "Go Long", but found that the moment-to-moment pacing of the album was very, very slow. "Baby Birch" in particular, although I realize it is a favourite for many, sounds interminable to me when I try and engage with it. Other songs ("On A Good Day", in particular) are among my favourites.

Considering how roundly celebrated Newsom is for Ys and HOOM, and the fact that when I listened to the first single off "Divers" I sneezed when I heard her sing "ozymandian" and switched it off, it took me a couple of years to approach "Divers"-- this, despite having every homo in my proximity crowing about how fantastic and essential it is. When I finally listened to it, I was flattened. It's a perfect record, "ozymandian" included.

i need to go back to divers

hoom is a total masterpiece imo

things that will never happen to me: getting through “in california” without crying

Yeah that song is monstrously good. I once was drunk and mentally drawing parallels between her four albums to date and Dubliners - Artist - Ulysses - Wake but that was probably just sophomoric bullshit on my end.

fgti otm, as per usual. "The Milk-Eyed Mender" is Joanna at her rawest and nakedest, a perfect Debut - like Björk's Debut - as a seed promising a flower, promising new directions after. Fantastic in its own right but even more fantastic because it holds such promise (promises that would eventually be kept).

I did download 'Ys' at the time (RIP Oink) but never thought it a bore. I was spellbound from the get-go. I found VDP's involvement distracted a lot of reviewers, but I didn't let that distract me.

"22 years old"

Erm, 32 actually. Still amazing. But..

Born 1982