New Joanna Newsom Album "Ys" Due Nov 14

Think my favourite lyric right now is the final few stanzas of "Anecdotes".

it is wild how jealous i was of newsom's writing when i was like... 19. i thought, "wow, i'll never be that good." and then she got better

i like ys and divers alright, but i've always absolutely loved this heavy-handed attempted takedown from trouser press. it's just so unneccessarily mean ffs and i often wonder if jn herself has ever seen it:

The acclaim seemed to go to Newsom's head, and the follow-up reeks of ambition with a capital ART. Gone are the simple, beguiling tunes of the debut, replaced with defiantly overlong opuses — five compositions totaling nearly an hour, though each seems about that long. Song length wouldn't be an issue if Newsom had bothered with anything resembling structure. (At least when old school poppers-turned-proggers Stackridge spent 20 minutes going on about the horrific Slark, they set it to a right jaunty little tune.) On Ys, whose Renaissance Fayre-style painting on the cover recalls the grand old days of Kansas (yikes) and is named for a mythical Celtic kingdom (yegads), Newsom does listeners no such favors, and instead strands them in a meandering hell. She plunks away at her harp and seemingly free-associates lyrics while Van Dyke Parks (an old master at landing work bearing no relation to rock music in the rock section of record stores) provides aimless orchestral squiggles and noodles in the background. It's like being stuck in the seat next to a chatty, batshit backwoods pixie for an 18-hour plane ride. All hope is abandoned after the first five minutes or so of the opener "Emily," which begins promisingly and is moderately mesmerizing until Newsom begins caterwauling about meteorites. After that, the album becomes an exercise in looking at one's watch and wondering how long the damn thing is going to go on. (The presence of Steve Albini and Jim O'Rourke shows that somewhere along the line either Newsom or Drag City worried enough about alt-rock credibility to put their indie-god ass-prints on the studio furniture.) As excruciating as The Milk-Eyed Mender was magical, Ys buckles under the hefty weight of its aspirations.

"indie-god ass-prints" like fr? lol

"sadie" is my favourite from the milk-eyed mender, which is a near-perfect album that's only a little underrated and overshadowed because ys and have one on me are such absurdly ambitious works.

i saw her the year after this record. while i was attending unr she actually played there and... idk if i can access exactly how i felt about it, but i must have been super fucking excited because no one plays reno, or anywhere in nevada really. reno however is only a few hours away from nevada city/grass valley etc. where she grew up and was still living at the time (i think); iirc she told a very entertaining and funny story about trying to convey her harp to the show which i can't remember the details of. i wrote a piece about it for the college magazine which hopefully has completely disintegrated from the internet, no one needs that. but the show was shatteringly beautiful. my favorite parts all involved her band, who iirc helped shape what have one on me turned out to be

idk when i think about her i think "greatest artist of my lifetime??? yeah probably"

Saw her perform Ys in a tiny club in Austin, and it was the first time I'd heard her use the breathier voice that she employs on HOOM to such great effect, and it sounded soooooo much better than anything she had recorded up to the point. Was kind of bummed that she ditched that on Divers for her more familiar quirky cat lady style.

I saw her open for Will Oldham & Matt Sweeney in a Chicago loft just before The Milk-Eyed Mender came out, and talk about “opening act that blows the headliner off the stage.” Oldham/Sweeney were fine but seemed coasting compared to what she brought.

I listened to all those segments of the Ys songs (or maybe, just segments of "Only Skin") played separately like "Be A Woman" on the Tadpoles website so when the album landed there was all this familiar material that made the gigantic songs graspable. I still think it's my favourite, though it might be a factor of when I heard it because frankly they're all terrifyingly monumental works.

I've been watching videos of her playing songs solo on this recent tour, and was reminded that I genuinely considered flying to the States to go to one of them when they were announced. She performed "Time, As A Symptom" into "Anecdotes" which completes the Finnegans Wake-ian loop of "White star, white ship—Nightjar, transmit: tran/sending the first scouts over" and shit, it's really something special even filmed on someone's phone.

Literally the only thing I can't behind is the aesthetic of her TV presenter's headset mic, which is obviously incredibly way more useful when playing a harp and a piano on stage.

I saw her just once in Cambridge Mass in 2010. It was totally amazing. I seem to remember "Have One On Me" and "Baby Birch" as highlights. Also this exchange:

Crowd member: "Good Intentions!"
Joanna: "Haha, not yet."
Crowd: *cheers*
Joanna: "Oh, I mean we're not ready to play it live yet... I feel bad now."

I appreciate takedowns like that Trouser Press one because Newsom rather deliberately and consciously is creating work that can be attacked for being “uncool” (or in that writer’s estimation, “batshit, backwoods”).

I remember reading years ago that Newsom was into Henry Cow and there is some extremely Frith-y mosquito buzz guitar on Divers that reminded me of that

Oh and "Jackrabbits" was amazing too. That is one of the best songs on HOOM.

Psyched to see her play again in a few weeks. Put on Have One on Me for the first time in years. Still good! Still ... long! And neither of my kids nor, most surprisingly, my wife told me to turn it off, which is something.

i thought i was the only Newsom fan in the world who still revered Milk-Eyed Mender and wasn't thrilled with where she headed, at least superficially speaking, on the bulk of her music after that: I just think that the comments about her voice must have got to her, or maybe she just decided she'd had enough of it too, but I regret the turn toward the "pretty," both vocally and in Newsom's arrangements - for me there was something extremely unique (and still mostly un-revisited, apart from some spots on HOOM) in the way she played on a tension between lullaby and clamour. few singer-songwriters have made songs that RING so much, even in quiet yearning moments.

still some incredible tracks though on Ys and after

Didn't she have an operate at some point that changed the timbre/tenor of her voice?

Just found this interesting exchange:

STEREOGUM: You once very notably referred to you voice as being essentially “untrainable” …

NEWSOM: That’s one of my least favorite things I’ve ever said. The innocence or ignorance of youth or whatever.

STEREOGUM: I remembered that quote while listening to this record, I guess because I really don’t think that’s a true statement about your voice. Particularly on this record, your voice sounds very controlled and very strong in a way that it didn’t used to.

NEWSOM: I think when I called my voice “untrainable” — which was, like, 107 years ago, when I made my first record — I think it was kind of a defensive thing to say. I think it was probably after having been told by like 8,000 journalists that they thought my voice was confrontational. They thought I was willfully trying to comment on popular conventions of vocal beauty, and like there was something kind of punk rock about it, and I think at that point I was trying to say, “Well, I can’t help it. I can’t sing another way. I can’t train myself to sing another way.” But “untrainable” was the wrong word to use, because after I made that first record, I started touring a lot, and in a non-formal sense, I started training it. When you use your voice at two-hour concerts every single night, it shapes and changes it.

Then I did it again with Ys — my voice was different on that record. Then I toured again for a few more years, and I was playing two-hour shows every night for months on end, and then I got vocal-cord nodes right before recording Have One On Me and decided to go to a vocal coach in order to try to prevent that from happening again. I learned some warm-ups that are geared toward not getting vocal-cord nodes. Then I toured that record for a couple of years, and in the course of touring, I was doing these vocal warmups every single night before a show. I do my vocal warmups every time I rehearse, every time I record, before anything. That is a kind of training.

STEREOGUM: It’s amazing what a huge difference it makes.

NEWSOM: I think I gained over an octave. If you add top and bottom range, I think just from doing vocal warmups every night, I think I gained an octave and a half in total. At least maybe five or six whole steps in either direction.

just watched a live "baby birch" on YT and holy shit

sean I’m glad I’m not the only one! I’m just grateful that she was able to capture such a perfect snapshot of her creative thrust at that time, grateful we got two Versions Of Joanna in this life instead of just the one

I hope she does not Kate Bush tMEM and re-sing re-record any of it in a revisionist way

I mean it’d be lovely but please let us keep the original as canon

i'd like to hear a proper live album from her some day that includes things like the live version of "peach plum pear", as ys street band is great but i'd love to hear more like that. a 'reworks' album would be a shame though but i don't think that seems likely any time soon

also looked into the story of her having had an operation for vocal cord nodes which i did remember hearing but apparently that had been misreported - she did lose her voice while recording have one on me but there wasn't any surgery.

Yeah, looks like she just had voice lessons.

A good friend of mine played in the Ys Street Band. I asked him, given all the skill on stage, if there was ever much room for improvisation within or around all these winding, intricate songs, and he said (not surprisingly) not really, but that there was often room for interludes and long intros that worked out OK. One time I saw her (with a different band) and while she was ... tuning the harp? Or something else time consuming? Anyway, her guitarist at the time basically took requests for metal songs he then performed in a classical style. Just a bit of fun.

the version of "cosmia" on ys street band is a prime example of extending things out a bit like that.

And with Divers, Newsom achieved it and surpassed it, with exquisitely wrought arrangements from Muhly and Longstreth, her fantastic list of collaborators, I think it is a stunning achievement and I frankly cower before it.

- fgti

i echo this completely; divers is intellectually and emotionally head and shoulders above any music i've heard in the past 20 years. the fact that she can write and perform at that level while also seeming funny, self-aware, and even remotely approachable is almost crazier.

ugh I can't believe "ozymandian" kept me from erm diving in for so long, it just seemed so brutally thesaurist right off the bat even though it is exactly the right word and well-deployed upon subsequent examination

hah, tbh having that song drop first didn't move any needles for me. i think it works best as sequenced in the album.

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

here's "time as a symptom" into "anecdotes". really wonderful

ugh, I want to see one of these shows

She seems looser than normal in these new clips, like she's treating it as rehearsal.

'Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie' is what split it apart for me - my way in. I agree that it's perfect. The lyric that gets me most (because it makes me think of my sister for obscure reasons) is:

And some great bellies ache with many bumblebees
And they sting so terribly.

And there are some mornings when the sky looks like a road which is pure Joni.

Christ, I filled up just typing those out.

I've seen her twice live, both in 2007 - at the Albert Hall, which (I guess unsurprisingly) was a bit mannered but still extraordinary, and at the Green Man festival as the sun set over the mountains.

ugh I can't believe "ozymandian" kept me from erm diving in for so long, it just seemed so brutally thesaurist right off the bat even though it is exactly the right word and well-deployed upon subsequent examination

For some reason when she does this stuff I don't mind it, but with the Decemberists I find it insufferable.

She seems looser than normal in these new clips, like she's treating it as rehearsal.

I suspect it is! I know she took a break from touring/playing live, but I also think she took a break from playing, period, focusing on being a parent. It's been a while since she toured solo, hasn't it? So I suspect she's getting her chops back in order before she finishes work on a new album. Have the setlists of these multi-night engagements featured much in the way of new material?

xp Oh yes, also "it feels so good to be a rose" is a lyric where you see the end of it coming before she arrives (what else is going to rhyme with "nose"?) but the image is so specific that you can't actually think she's gonna go there but she does

Something very nice about the usage of rather banal-sounding words like "rose" and "road" for intricate purposes.

I thought for a while that "Ozymandian" might be her own coinage. It helps to know that it's a real word.

for an embarrassingly long time i thought she was saying "you're patty hearst" instead of "you're badly hurt" in 'go long'

there hasn't been any new material played i think but hopefully there'll still be an album next year

robin pecknold was posting some photos of jn (and her harp!) on his instagram some days ago and now he's been posting a lot of studio photos. i am hopeful that either she will be on the next fleet foxes thing or he will be on her next thing. seems probable as they have toured together a few times.

XP totally totally forgot I went to see her in the Royal Albert Hall in 2007.

FYI this concert from the Divers tour is really spectacular and a great recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHVHEQRbFC8

Thanks, this is gorgeous. It's amazing how many great songs she has at this point (and I would claim, not a single dud.)

thanks for the link

i'd love to read a JN poll.

lamonti, thank you so much for the link! The uploader also posted high-quality recordings of four other shows (Munich 2005, Alabama 2006, Washington 2010, Paris 2011), it seems it's his pet project:

I wanted to make available a collection that was entirely high quality audio, that spanned all of Joanna’s career so far, and was easy to find and enjoy via stream and/or download. It was a project that was surprisingly challenging, but very rewarding. Particularly when it comes to “Live at Bottletree Cafe”, as I was eventually able to clean up the digital clicks and pops in ‘Emily’, and patch over the audio glitch in ‘Monkey & Bear’, making this fantastic bootleg even better for the next generation of Joanna fans.

They all seem to sound pretty fantastic.

YouTube playlist with all 5:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMhu9WD0R5W2UtpGX_GaLML8HyWwgg0_f

MP3 download:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QqTI0GZx8BcnPQM4MZAg1nafZtYm2fb3

I remember listening to the Alabama 2006 bootleg shortly after Ys was released. What a trip down the memory lane!

I too would love a JN poll! I have no idea what track would win... prob “Emily” or “California”? No idea

"Peach, Plum, Pear" maybe? Even fans whose fave album isn't tMEM would place that one, surely.

Sawdust & Diamonds

Yeah it's a tough pick between her epics ("Only Skin"), her bagatelles ("On A Good Day"), her ballads ("Crab, Clam...") and her pop tunes ("The Book Of Right-On"). I feel like my vote would favour her long pieces, even if I care for them less, but because I respect her ambition, and they seem to be, really, the most important aspect of her overall vision.

I wouldn't mind a POLLANNA NEWSOM, my top 5 would be all the tracks from Ys, which has not one wasted second on it, and is an exhilarating ride from start to finish.

(A poll would also force me to reckon with the rest of her discog, which I've felt less compelled to explore because Ys is already so expansive.)

i would kinda want to wait for her next record but otherwise yes i'm in

yup same

Would love and actively participate in that poll!

Does she have a new record on the horizon?

idk i'm just hoping