New Joanna Newsom Album "Ys" Due Nov 14

Joanna Newsom: thorny, precise
Fiery Furnaces: thorny, unprecise
Sufjan Stevens: unthorny, precise

?

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/bigger20band20photo.jpg
L-R: Danny Cantrell, Ryan Francesconi, Kevin Barker, some harpist, Katie Hardin, Neal Morgan

Set List

solo
"Bridge and Balloons"
"The Book of Right On"
"Ca' the Yowes" (trad scottish folksong - a real treat)

w/ band
all of Ys, in order

solo encore
"Sadie"
"Peach Plum Pear"

Random observations: Her old songs aren't performed with the same oomph - the pre-band songs seemed like stretching/warmup to tackle Ys, and the post-band encore seemed like audience appeasement. The defiance has been sapped from "this is not my tune / but it's mine to use," and the hideous crackle of "bless those who've sickened below" has been tempered by her newfound tunefulness. They're still great songs and I'll gladly listen to them any time she deigns to play them - but they seem like trifles beside Ys's towers of song.

I don't prefer Ys as an album to The Milk Eyed Mender, but under the enforced focus of a live performance, the extended pieces overpower their little siblings. I agree with you, Mark, and a couple others who've posted here; the album's a bit of a chore to listen to. But live, catch her if you can. The five piece band didn't drown her out, in fact, they rarely played all at once. Mostly it was Cantrell's accordion and Francesconi's bouzouki and the rest was accents for certain passages. Cantrell also played the saw during "Cosmia", and I swear that was a high point of the night. It sounded like an organic theremin, just beautiful.

Here are the rest of her tour dates.

Wed 11/15 NEW HAVEN, CT - Toad's Place (I think this one was taped and might start making the rounds)
Thu 11/16 PHILADELPHIA, PA - Sanctuary
Fri 11/17 WASHINGTON, DC - The Black Cat
Sat 11/18 GREENSBORO, NC - Gail Brower Huggins Theater
Sun 11/19 ATLANTA, GA - Variety Playhouse
Mon 11/20 NASHVILLE, TN - Mercy Lounge
Tue 11/21 KNOXVILLE, TN - Blue Cats
Wed 11/22 ASHEVILLE, NC - The Diana Wortham Theater
Fri 11/24 LOUISVILLE, KY - Headliners
Sat 11/25 BIRMINGHAM, AL - Bottle Tree
Wed 11/29 MALIBU, CA - Malibu Performing Arts
Thu 11/30 LOS ANGELES, CA - El Rey Theater
Fri 12/1 SANTA CRUZ, CA - Rio Theatre
Sat 12/2 EUGENE, OR - Indigo District
Sun 12/3 PORTLAND, OR - Aladdin Theater
Mon 12/4 SEATTLE, WA - The Showbox
Tue 12/5 VANCOUVER, BC - St. Andrews Wisley Church
Fri 12/8 MINNEAPOLIS, MN - 400 Bar
Sat 12/9 MADISON, WI - Club 770
Mon 12/11 NORMAN, OK - Meacham Theater
Tue 12/12 HOUSTIN, TX - Orange Show
Wed 12/13 AUSTIN, TX - The Parish
Thu 12/14 MARFA, TX - The Ballroom
Fri 12/15 ALBUQUERQUE, NM - Launch Pad
Tue 12/19 SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Great American Music Hall
Wed 12/20 SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Great American Music Hall

her singing is relentless
her lyrics too much! It's not even the LENGTH of the song per se, it's then she wont stop singing and give it a break...EVER

I just listened to it again, to further try and understand why everyone gets so easily starry eyeed about it. and on monkey and bear, you are hard pressed to find more than 5 seconds of non vocal moments.

Good stuff

easily the most original, and best, record of the year, and of many other years, too. luckily i have been absent from ilm for some time so i can revel in this without paying no mind to the harpplayahataz. music is back indeed.

hahahaha

As for mood, there's at least two light (if not comedic) moments (in Emily and, I think Only Skin) where she's suddenly playing with animatronic puppets in some Disney swamp.

Maybe the third record will be the actual genius one she's clearly (potentially) capable of.

solo encore
"Sadie"
"Peach Plum Pear"

I think that was pretty much the set list at the early show at Webster Hall (NYC) that I saw, except that she switched "Sadie" to the first solo section, and "Book of Right On" to the solo encore, and played "Clam Crab Cockle Cowrie" instead of "Peach Plum Pear" for the last encore. I think I like the string arrangements on the album better than the accompaniment that was played by the touring band, but it was still a very good show.

-- Naive Teen Idol

yeah, me too. I find it just impossible to properly articulate why & where this record (and her last partly, though that was much easier to just treat as 'fun') fails for me.

It is definitely more than "pretty good" by any measure, yet at the same time I'm nowhere within 50 miles of "love" for it. And yeah, perhaps I am just not that impressed by the lyrics, at least not like Beefheart impressed or anything. They make for pretty good poetry yes, but... so what? I'm not sure they make for better music than plain old regular unfussy lyrics... they certainly take an intolerable time longer to effectively pierce my heart.

brr you are so OTM it hurts.

ps. can someone teach me how to quote another post and make it italicized ?

I'm clearly an idiot both in my understanding and study of joanna's prose/poetry AND posting on bulletin boards

:\

apple command something?

http://www.pageresource.com/html/textags.htm

I said Thank you

O_o

I do have considerably more to say about all of this, but I'm going to save it for the end-of-year CoM round-up.

Man, the one thing that just hits you in the face about her is that she is just absolutely FLAWLESS (well, as far as not hitting ONE wrong note and remembering all those changes and lyrics....).

But why does she have to play the entire album in order? It's tiring to stand and listen to, I'm sure it's tiring to actually play. Why not mix in some of the "short" songs?

jesus god best phrase ever

I'd kind of liked JN's stuff, and many tracks off of Milk Eyed Mender had touched me but not enough to endure repeated listenings. But I can kind of understand where Jim "Music Is Back" O'Rourke is coming from here. It's not necessarily meant as a pretentious statement, more the essence of musicianship and composition. Here is someone who might have had her shot in the dark during the Freakfolk boom of 2004 and disappeared along with many other one-timers.
But as Edward III says, I'd like to echo the thought of her being quite a bit more than a fad. JN is way way above what Devendra and his cohorts are doing this (I say this as an advocate of Banhart). This is a proper album. It's a work of art which has obviously taken an extreme amount of blood, sweat and tears, so-to-speak, and I think this is what O'Rourke is trying to pont out. This isn't any old tossed off indie here-today-gone-tomorrow rubbish, it is totally unique in it's aspect and I haven't felt so intrigued and bewildered yet tempted to listen again and again by a new release since Autechre's "Confield".
Weird comparison? Okay, but someone upthread said they felt almost as if the music was above them -- as if they wished it was a bit more down to earth. I have to call bullshit on this to be fair. If it was songs about washing your hair or getting down on the dancefloor, it would be someone else, not Joanna Newsom and you have to be ready and willing to open up to her fairy tale world if you're going to enjoy it. Banging on about the music being ungenuine is ridiculous too. You can either sing about kitchen sinks or you can be a method actor or a story teller. In this case, it's the latter two. If you don't like it then go back to your Smiths albums and stop complaining.
This is a wonderful, intricate, storybook of an album and I haven't quite felt this drawn and willingly happy to listen to certain tracks again and again in quite some time. Especially in this age when music consumption often means that I have little time for releases that I really should give more time for.
To be honest, it's still over my head - I still don't know what the beef is with the monkey and the bear, despite it being my favourite track (mostly cos of VDP's excellent string arrangements), but fuck it - that's not what it's meant to be about. This is defo a big grower.

(?!?!)

the album is OK, but it's the reaction to it that drives me bats

(1) You'll either love it or hate it.
(2) It's impossible to "get" unless you spend a lot of time with it.
(3) There's something to "get" at all.
(4) People who don't like it aren't listening close enough.
(5) Newsom is a flake.
(6) Newsome is a fake.
(7) Newsom is a genius.
(8) Because a lot of people who like the album have funny haircuts and tight t-shirts, Newsom must be catering to them.

but please don't mention joni mitchell or mary margaret o'hara (that was on a blog somewhere). those two make/made vital, emotive, inspiring music whereas newsom sounds dry, precocious, suffocating, tiring, lifeless etc. there are no surprises. the more i listen to it, the clearer it becomes. there are bits of tunes there, that's right but the whole thing just doesn't hold together. flawless might be actually quite to the the point but it is the kind of perfection with no breath in it.