Joanna Newsom – Ys

This entry was posted by owl and bear staff on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007 at 1:41 pm.

2006, Drag City

On this awesome achievement, Joanna Newsom sounds like a precocious, brilliant youngster.

Everyone on the bus to the renaissance fair! Come on, it’ll be fun—just like the middle ages, only cleaner. Listening to Ms. Newsom—with her weird, artsy lyrics, her plucked harp, and Van Dyke Parks’ orchestration—evokes that kind of medieval vibe. Inevitably, it’s pretty fucking nice, but it won’t immediately please every listener.

For one thing, Ys is surrealistically bizarre, though oddly catchy and hummable. With a little lysergic acid, one might be institutionalized. Mary Poppins bred with Monty Python makes sense to me, but it’s obvious that Newsom is deadly earnest about her music, an admirable trait.

Ys is for fans of Devendra’s Banhart’s more precious moments, or those (like the album cover artist) for whom the ’60s never ended. The 1560’s, that is.

A+