Album: Ys
Artist: Joanna Newsom
Born: Nevada City, California
Released: November 2006
Genre: Folk
Albums like this one are real rarities these days. They require a substantial investment of time and concentration from the listener, and many people nowadays prefer music that just plays in the background or makes for easy consumption. In my more hopeful moments, performers like Joanna Newsom reassure me that the album has a future. Newsom got her break as part of the "freak folk" scene spearheaded by Devendra Banhart, a musician himself discovered by Swans frontman Michael Gira, who worked with Banhart on his first record, Oh Me Oh My (2002). Banhart then went on to curate the folk compilation album, The Golden Apples Of The Sun (2004), which featured Newsom along with many other acts in this emerging scene, such as Six Organs Of Admittance, Iron & Wine and Vetiver, as well as the genre's spiritual founder, Vashti Bunyan. After recording a few EPs on just a Fisher-Price tape recorder, Newsom was then signed up by label Drag City thanks to an endorsement by Will Oldham and in 2004 she released her debut LP, The Milk-Eyed Mender. This was the first time I heard her music and though I loved the harp and piano arrangements, I had real issues with her voice. Thankfully, her singing is far less flighty and nasal and more grounded on Ys, and the songwriting reaches a whole new level entirely compared to her first LP.
Sprout & The Bean was one of a handful of songs I liked on The Milk-Eyed Mender, and it points forward to the medieval fairy tale atmosphere of Ys. Many people see similarities in Newsom with the elfin qualities of Björk and the rich imagination of Kate Bush, but her music is more aligned with prog rock and the electric folk of Sandy Denny (Newsom's wonderful cover of The North Star Grassman & The Ravens -- see below -- is her homage to the singer-songwriter). The album's ability to recapture the expansive, experimental spirit of the 60s & 70s is also thanks to the contribution of Van Dyke Parks, a composer who's most famous for his collaborations with Brian Wilson on the Smile project. He also released his own wonderful record, Song Cycle (1967), which Newsom listened to on the recommendation of her then boyfriend Bill Callahan, leading her to invite Parks into the studio to help with the production of Ys (Steve Albini was also involved). The music conjures up a mythical world full of monkeys and bears, and epic voyages involving dark woods and fairy tale castles, but the songs are in fact grounded in everyday life. Having the lyric sheet at hand helped me navigate through the songs, and Only Skin was one that I felt I understood, her words about being in a relationship with someone she wants to "heal", someone who's lost their way ("But always up the mountainside you're clambering / groping blindly, hungry for anything"). Emily is also a highlight, in the way it ebbs and flows, but the magical whole of Ys is far more important than its component parts.
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