New Joanna Newsom Album "Ys" Due Nov 14

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god she's a loser
10 minute ren fair songs

plus lame cover art and promo shots

the only thing she's got going for her is the VDP association
which she paid for FYI

― kevin barking (arghargh), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 00:54 (seventeen years ago) link

she writes really good songs

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 01:34 (seventeen years ago) link

i used to be in the "lame ren fair" camp re: opinions towards her.

but Van Dyke Parks arranging? damn..

― oh, wrinklepaws! (Wrinklepaws), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 02:01 (seventeen years ago) link

She was pretty amazing live playing harp/singing too.

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 02:06 (seventeen years ago) link

wow, i both love and hate that album cover. i mean, i get it. ravens and butterflies and a scythe, it's all anachronistic and symbolic and stuff. it just looks like the cover of a fantasy novel.

ehhhh oh well. i am still anticipating it highly. hopefully it'll all make sense once we hear it.

― Emily B (Emily B), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 03:01 (seventeen years ago) link

can i get a poster of that press photo?

― rizzx (Rizz), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 22:35 (seventeen years ago) link

‘At one moment during the mixing of this record, I said to Joanna, "I've got an idea for the ad for this record, just a picture of you, and above it says "music" and below it says "is back"." And I really meant it, this record not only recalls, but is part of, why i loved music in the first place. Someone's vision seen all the way through, sweat lost, brain racked, soul searched, and fingers calloused. I doubt we'll hear anything as brilliant in a long, long time’

Jim O’ Rourke

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 12:48 (seventeen years ago) link

She's stolen the title from Alan Stivell I see

― dud Hab 'C' dEva (Dada), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 12:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Side 1, Track 1:

http://eil.com/newgallery/Alan-Stivell-Renaissance-Of-Th-261086.jpg

― dud Hab 'C' dEva (Dada), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 13:02 (seventeen years ago) link

I said to Joanna, "I've got an idea for the ad for this record, just a picture of you, and above it says "music" and below it says "is back"." And I really meant it

What, you mean like how men are back and rock is always back and all that? Thanks Jim.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 13:07 (seventeen years ago) link

What a shit idea

― dud Hab 'C' dEva (Dada), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 13:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Live, you thread you!

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 15:28 (seventeen years ago) link

‘At one moment during the mixing of this record, I said to Joanna, "I've got an idea for the ad for this record, just a picture of you, and above it says "The Incredible String Band" and below it says "is back"...

Jim O'RLY

― dud Hab 'C' dEva (Dada), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 15:41 (seventeen years ago) link

it's not stolen from Stivell but from the mythical drowned kingdom of Ys, which has already inspired much art, music, etc (see also the BdB album).

― Ghost Bear Junior High Attendance Party (Ghost Bear Junior High Attenda), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 16:36 (seventeen years ago) link

it's not stolen from Stivell but borrowed from the mythical drowned kingdom of Ys, which has already inspired much art, music, etc (see also the BdB album).

― Ghost Bear Junior High Attendance Party (Ghost Bear Junior High Attenda), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 16:41 (seventeen years ago) link

This is nice. Definitely in my top 5 of the year. The strings add so much to the songs.

― Turangalila (Salvador), Saturday, 2 September 2006 21:14 (seventeen years ago) link

This is very memorable. Some of it seems to be cloying after a few listens, but I owe it many more.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Sunday, 3 September 2006 00:26 (seventeen years ago) link

She is very far from being "ren faire" even if I agreed that this was a damning epithet.

She is really sharp.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Sunday, 3 September 2006 00:27 (seventeen years ago) link

This might be my favorite album of the year. I can't think of anything that tops it, but I'm more of a singles person, anyway.

― Tape Store (Tape Store), Sunday, 3 September 2006 00:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Jim O'RLY

Ha! I actually really like this album, although irrespective of the 11-minute average track length, she has done more interesting things with her voice and lyrics than with the music

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Sunday, 3 September 2006 08:31 (seventeen years ago) link

I love the album. Though, to me, it sounds like Van Dyke Parks didn't much actually like the songs, and just decided to write his own material around them.

That might actually be why it's good.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Sunday, 3 September 2006 08:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Maybe it's too soon but I'm not hearing anything here as good as "This Side of the Blue" etc.

Still . . . VDP

― Roque Strew (RoqueStrew), Sunday, 3 September 2006 08:43 (seventeen years ago) link

This record is pretty awesome.

I've never understood the appeal of VDP's arrangements. He always sounds like he's transcribing Fairport Convention solos. I wish Newsom had considered Jon Brion or Wolfgang Rihm.

― Owen Pallett (Owen Pallett), Sunday, 3 September 2006 15:02 (seventeen years ago) link

I haven't read this thread yet, but I searched this page for "pitchfork" and "leak" and there's only that joke about the cover art by Doctor Casino up there. So... does that mean that you guys haven't heard? Pitchfork leaked this, purportedly.

Wikipedia entry on 'Ys'

Also, someone on the K Records message board has posted a list of many more albums Pitchfork supposedly leaked:

I already know that this link to said post won't last forever, though

(I hope those links work.)

I'm not saying that I really know anything or have any real sources, I'm just saying that words are going around, is all. But, if any of this is true, I'd love, love, love to see Pitchfork go down. Fuck those bitches (save Nitsuh).

― blood bitch (blood bitch), Monday, 4 September 2006 04:37 (seventeen years ago) link

(save Nitsuh).

And dleone & Tim Finney.

― Turangalila (Salvador), Monday, 4 September 2006 04:50 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm glad that I'm not a twee hippy-dippy record buyer and can ignore this record and it's magickal sleeve.

It's all enough to make me pine for an acid house revival. This "weird America" folkiness has to stop NOW. But the kitschy hubris of the Joanna Newsom sleeve might just do the trick. Hippies are always their own worst enemy. Ha ha ha.

― Hot Hot Heat (Hot Hot Heat), Monday, 4 September 2006 04:51 (seventeen years ago) link

save strongo harbl!!

― genital hyphys (haitch), Monday, 4 September 2006 04:56 (seventeen years ago) link

x-post

All right, Hot Hot Heat.

...An acid house revival would rock the shithouse, though.

― blood bitch (blood bitch), Monday, 4 September 2006 04:57 (seventeen years ago) link

"revival"

― timmy tannin (pompous), Monday, 4 September 2006 04:58 (seventeen years ago) link

No hippie music just acid house.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Monday, 4 September 2006 05:03 (seventeen years ago) link

oh, that post on the k board is actually by a dude in 5rc band, the punks. i guess he might be more likely to be 'in the know' of such matters.

― blood bitch (blood bitch), Monday, 4 September 2006 05:04 (seventeen years ago) link

I just heard the first track for the first time from start to finish and I'm mystified. It sounded improvised, structureless, with strings thrown in, with nothing to guide you through the song (no repeating features, no theme, no sustained tempo) and no immediately graspable storyline to follow.

I hope there's something there I'll discover in forthcoming listens, but at the moment: WTF?

― StanM (StanM), Monday, 4 September 2006 05:17 (seventeen years ago) link

(I loved Milky, btw)

― StanM (StanM), Monday, 4 September 2006 05:18 (seventeen years ago) link

i wasn't much for the first album so i'm surprised to find myself liking this one a great deal. the last minute of "emily" reminds me of the harp intro/outro of "the all golden," coincidentally

― joseph (joseph), Monday, 4 September 2006 23:37 (seventeen years ago) link

She doesn't really bring me into her headspace as much as I'm trying to assume she could. I feel quite left behind by her music sometimes. Is it weird to want for more real life and less blatant narnian fantasy in her music?

This is an album of really gorgeous moments (so far, still percolating) but I'm still quite dubious of her whole damn thing really.

― bad hair day house (fandango), Monday, 4 September 2006 23:52 (seventeen years ago) link

it's also an album of gorgeous movements from one melodic part to the next.

there's definitely a sort of blandness to the actual sounds though, despite how well they move here.

― bad hair day house (fandango), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 00:04 (seventeen years ago) link

OMG "Cosmia"

It's so gorgeous..."and all those lonely nights down by the RIIIVERRR"

― Tape Store (Tape Store), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 00:59 (seventeen years ago) link

>>it's also an album of gorgeous movements from one melodic part to the next.
there's definitely a sort of blandness to the actual sounds though, despite how well they move here.

― JMMMusic (Jimmy M), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 02:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Right. As I was saying...

The movement between parts reminds me of the randomizing systems used by Eno in "Three Variations on Canon in D," except that here there seems to be an element of mutual inspiration between the words and the music. None of the songs ever achieve resolution, but simply peter out when the time is right.

The whole thing is pretty syrupy and smooth, but I think that her poetry is strong enought to overcome the lack of edges. And it's full of absolutely gorgeous melodies.

― JMMMusic (Jimmy M), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 02:12 (seventeen years ago) link

I wish Newsom had considered Jon Brion

If you wanted it to sound like Rufus Wainwright... then yeah, I guess.

― Turangalila (Salvador), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 06:31 (seventeen years ago) link

it's not stolen from Stivell but from the mythical drowned kingdom of Ys, which has already inspired much art, music, etc (see also the BdB album).

... maybe, but the fact that it's the first track on the most famous HARP album in modern folk music is surely no coincidence

― Ich Ber Ein Binliner (Dada), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 13:29 (seventeen years ago) link

If you wanted it to sound like Rufus Wainwright...

The first sign of the apocalypse?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 13:30 (seventeen years ago) link

More cover art:

http://www.bumpershine.com/2006/09/01/joanna-newsom-ys-a-closer-look.html

I've been listening to it all weekend. I have some thoughts but no time to organize them.

― Edward III (edward iii), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 13:58 (seventeen years ago) link

dear god.

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

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

― bad hair day house (fandango), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 14:36 (seventeen years ago) link

The first sign of the apocalypse?

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

Haha. Indeed.

― Turangalila (Salvador), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 19:34 (seventeen years ago) link

...is it just me or does she sounds like the freak-folk version of Bjork?

― emekars (emekars), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 21:20 (seventeen years ago) link

what do you mean by that?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 21:40 (seventeen years ago) link

btw i'm surprised the packaging is so lavishly finalized about 2 months before the release date... what are they waiting for?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 21:46 (seventeen years ago) link

if she was Bjork's sister it woudnt surprise me - they have sort of a similiar vocals, and same way of "playing" with it.

― emekars (emekars), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 21:49 (seventeen years ago) link

you're not the first to draw the Björk comparison, no

― bad hair day house (fandango), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 21:56 (seventeen years ago) link

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