New Joanna Newsom Album "Ys" Due Nov 14

she's shown admirable restraint in keeping this under 3 discs of material I guess.

as opposed to Sufjan "bank! bank! bank now!" Stevens...

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), September 5th, 2006. (Ned) (link)

Haha. Indeed.

-My beautiful and astute wife, reacting to my praise of this record as it played on our long car trip this afternoon

Much like the time she challenged me to defend the Minutemen's "slap bass parts," I was at a loss.

She's becoming the Andy Rooney of indie rock, that one.

My opinion on YS is unchanged, however - a meticulous, dense and beautiful record I will definitely be coming back to often. Reminds me of Astral Weeks in places. Anyone else?

But her latest output is watered-down grocery store music, I'll give you that.

-- Wand Milius

Yup. Also In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

I think I'm waiting until its release to finally listen to Ys. My only regret is that her publicity shot couldn't have been the album cover. Don't labels care about record sales anymore?

Ha, that's the only one they pretty much didn't do anything to. It's still just harp and voice.

"Cosmia" is relatively short and snappy and it has a killer Joni Mitchell-ish hook. Well, it's 7 minutes long but that's as close as you're gonna get.

Anyway:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/Three_female_druids.jpg/727px-Three_female_druids.jpg

-- M. V. (m...), September 5th, 2006.

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Oh, please.

-- Owen Pallett (opallet...), September 3rd, 2006. (Owen Pallett) (link)

a) That comparison doesnt make any sense whatsoever. VDP predates Fairport Convention. Also, he sounds nothing like FC.

b) Rihm? C'mon, man. Typical 20th century classical garbage. Super heavy emo 12 tone stuff and whatnot.

c) Jon Brion is a sub par Brian Wilson wanna-be.

Personally, I think VDP is the perfect foil to Joanna's quirky americana song cycle broadway musical tunes.

she's got a litte kristin hersh

I looked at The Milk Eyed Mender in my cd pile last night and suddenly felt quite fond and nostalgic...

I think I hate this album. and for gods sake do NOT listen to it stoned, it doesn't 'open up' as much as it becomes completely ridiculous and annoying.

On second thought I'd describe Parks' arrangement style as somewhat similar to Shooby Taylor. Melodic scatting over otherwise finished songs.

His work on this album kills. Totally the best.

their vocal tone, at times, is exactly the same. that's all. You're right about Kristin Hersh having more fire, more stream-of-conciousness.

i think i don't like this either. otm about smoking up w/ this.

First, my timeline is not backwards. FC was formed in the late 60s. VDP was already making music in the late 50s and was signed before the FC were and in totally different contexts.

What I've heard of Rihm gave me that impression, and if you want to provide examples that go against that or want to talk about why you think he's so great, I'm willing to listen.

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.