JOANNA NEWSOM
Ys
Drag City
· Immaculate conception.
It’s always been deceptively easy to cast off Joanna Newsom as a tad too quirky, a little too whimsical and occasionally verging on the depth and cheese of a fantasy van painting. From the first Internet murmurings over her Walnut Whales EP (particularly its equally brilliant and annoying "Kite Flying"), Newsom’s arguably grabbed as much attention for being weird as she did for her music. Granted, the debut album proper, Milk Eyed Mender, held several moments of true beauty ("Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie" for one is a spotless outcast anthem). Good as it was, Mender wasn’t ever quite the easiest listen to take on from start to finish. A five-song album-length cycle completed (in close collaboration with fellow muso nutjob Van Dyke Parks) sets off warning bells – could there be a more perilous balance between brilliance and madness?
The result erases any frets. Critics’ tongues have been wagging since the earliest online leak, and Ys is every bit the surprise masterwork the blogeratti have been proclaiming it since the autumn. Few albums carry the same sense of wonder and imagination – from the opening moments of "Emily," with its classical melodies and warbling strings, Ys presents itself as a novel within a world of under-cooked short stories. Somehow the entire thing holds together as a complete and necessary whole. It’s a big job to take Ys on, but entirely worth the effort. Given the attention it requires, it appears the winter weather is entirely in Newsom’s favour.
Despite the names involved (production handled by Jim O’Rourke, recording duties tackled by Steve Albini, arrangements by Mr. Parks), Ys is never anyone else’s show but Newsom’s. The epic 17-minute centrepiece "Only Skin," proclaims, "Scrape your knee – it is only skin/ Makes the sound of violins." Like the song’s titular insistence, Newsom isn’t held back by the skin she’s in and music flows out of her like it was nothing at all.
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