Joanna Newsom Ys Full Orchestra And

Apart from sheer abundance of music here, its also very dense and scrupulously laboured over, not only by Newsom herself but a select band of fellow musicians and arrangers - not to mention ace mixing engineers Jim ORourke, and Noah Georgeson (best known for his work with Devendra Banhart).

And in triplicate.

After the ornate majesty of Ys (a mere double-album), you might expect a record of even larger proportions to pursue similarly baroque themes and concerns, and yet for much of the time Have One On Me is a more approachable work, featuring shorter, more pared down pieces in addition to complex orchestral concoctions like the resplendent In California.

Georgesons recordings of Newsoms harp are preposterously lovely, capturing her art at its most intimate on 81 and Jackrabbits, during which she performs solo to heart-rending effect, her voice sounding stronger and far more mature than on anything shes done previously.

In musical terms, the level of her accomplishment as a composer and instrumentalist is strikingly evident throughout her discography, but lyrically, Newsoms hugely impressive on this album.

Ys charted the ascent of a truly great writer in-the-making but was, perhaps, occasionally excessive in its various whimsies and flirtations with fanciful anachronisms.

Here Newsom is on startling form, lacing her achingly lovely narrative pieces with various lines that invite the inference of allusion to her break-up with fellow songwriter Bill Callahan.

More intriguing still is the possibility of a furtive Will Oldham reference during Go Long: Theres a manWho only will speak in codeBacking slowly, slowly down the roadMay he master everythingThat such men may knowAbout Loving, and then letting go - a verse that seems to paraphrase three separate Bonnie Prince Billy album titles.

Regardless of its magnitude, and despite all of its complexities, this epic three-part undertaking shouldnt be thought of as unwieldy or intimidating prospect for a listener - far from it: scarcely has such an expansive record felt so welcoming and conducive to repeat listens.

With this album Newsom sheds genre concerns (no more talk of freak-folk, please) and becomes a truly stellar writer of songs, continuing to forge a path thats very much of her own making whilst occasionally still acknowledging a debt to the likes of Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush and Judee Sill (whose work springs to mind during the remarkable Good Intentions Paving Company).

Meanwhile, the Newsoms also counted composerpianist Terry Riley as a neighbor, along with Howard Hersh and W.

Five songs in 55 minutes, the album slowly unravels in its idiosyncratic nuance.

Newsoms voice recalls old style jazz and cabaret singers with the touch of a 60s folkie while her compositions and arrangements are steeped in wandering, ponderous art song.

Joanna Newsom Ys Full Orchestra And

Strings, woodwinds, brass, a variety of percussion at points, a full orchestra and the expert scoring of legendary and controversial producer Van Dyke Parks who has enhanced and skewered the music of the Beach Boys, Randy Newman and Victoria Williams over the years, make this onion worth unpeeling.

The opening cut, Emily, for example, begins: The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport of the pharaoh.

These are not easy songs to penetrate, narrative in moments and quickly abstract, romantic in the longing for an existence very apart from modern life.

These songs are not for everybody the lyric vocabulary is exotic, the melodies are childlike to the point of preciousness, and Newsom sings in a girlish warble while accompanying herself on harp and piano.

But once the listener gets acclimated to its peculiarities, the album makes for revelatory listening.

Newsoms music takes folk-rooted forms and twists them into idiosyncratic shapes.

Tracks like Sprout And The Bean, The Book Of Right-On and This Side Of The Blue are poetic meanders filled with whimsical details and startling imagery.

Some tunes especially Cassiopeia, an insomniacs lullaby come across like word-association games set to music.

A playful, twang-laden country element creeps into Inflammatory Writ and Sadie.

The most affecting song is Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie, a haunting meditation on loneliness.

Dreamlike, delicate and sometimes downright weird, The Milk-Eyed Mender surrenders its strange charms if given the chance.

Like her rsum, Newsoms family and hometown of Nevada City, California, were musically rich: her mother trained to be a concert pianist, her father was a guitarist, and her brother and sister played the drums and cello, respectively.

Joanna Newsom Ys Download