Milk-Eyed Mender

 

 

Create your own review

I bought this album on the strength of a New York Times review that made Joanna Newsom sound like the greatest female vocalist since Joni Mitchell. I fired up the CD and was stung by how horrible her voice is. She sounds like a grade schooler learning the words to her own song. I thought the first track had to be a daughter or very young sister but I became depressed after the second track and realized this is her actual voice. I have a feeling this is some hip chick being promoted by the politically correct media, but she should make her career in orchestra. Do yourself a favor and listen to the tracks before you buy. I didn't because I trusted the NY Times. This album makes the case that music should be free.

During an interview at a kitchen table in Soho sometime last month, Will Oldham mentioned Joanna Newsom as one of his favorite storytellers. At the time, I'd only passingly listened to her two self-released EPs, and was more familiar with her keyboard work with San Francisco's The Pleased and harp contributions to the Deerhoof/Hella side project Nervous Cop. But that's changed with the release of her first long player, The Milk-Eyed Mender. Here, the words to her meandering stories-- disarming in their formal purity, but still highly individualized and eccentric-- elaborate on an aesthetic that evokes French coins, dark maroon leaves, shafts of wheat, and ostrich feathers as much as it references them directly.
Born in Nevada City and currently residing in San Francisco, Newsom's yarns summon a deep, rustic South. A line in the buoyant "Bridges and Balloons" uses e.e. cummings neologisms and Omoo's breezy prosody to impart the tale of a winter's day on a fallible ship: "The sight of bridge and balloon/ Makes calm canaries irritable/ They caw and claw all afternoon/ 'Catenaries and dirigibles/ Brace and buoy the living room/ A loom of metal, warp-woof-wimble/ And a thimblesworth of milky moon/ Can touch hearts larger than a thimble." In "Sadie", the title character is asked to accept a pinecone and a bone, talismans to ward off death. Really, they're the gentlest tokens that mark the beginning of a relationship, and later reaffirm the love despite an inevitable move towards taciturnity.

Newsom's wonderfully detailed romanticism ("Your skin is something that I stir into my tea"), homespun wisdom ("Never get so attached to a poem, you forget truth that lacks lyricism"), idiosyncratic flourishes ("See him fashion a cap from a page of Camus"), and insights into the prosaic ("There are some mornings/ When the sky looks like a road") infuse each track with the weightiness of an embroidered travel narrative and a private field-recording.

She wields a joyful trill reminiscent of Texas Gladden on her "Devil and the Farmer's Wife", while her often childlike intonation also recalls Linda Hagood of the early '90s Uncle Wiggly-related trio, Smackdab, saturated with the air of '60s English folkie Vashti Bunyan. Showing an appreciation for Appalachian folk and the experimental composer/folksong scholar Ruth Crawford Seeger, her spare arrangements-- harp, Wurlitzer electronic piano, harpsichord, piano, and slide-guitar on two tracks-- unwind like early Homestead oddity, The Supreme Dicks.

Creating avant-garde American music for the back porch, she expands upon tradition without losing authenticity. In this sense, her practice could be linked to Devendra Banhart, a friend and kindred spirit. Both map a pile of eccentricities that tumble together to create something useful, familiar, and nearly sacred. Here's hoping to a duet for the new folk future. Perhaps Kenny-and-Dolly style?

I bought this on recommendation. As soon as the first track started and I heard this astonishing voice...well...I lasted three minutes. It was all I could bear. The voice sounds childish and untrained and the music brings little with it to make this a pleasurable listening experience. Perhaps I just don't have the ear for it, but it did make my dog bark.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 23 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

 

5.0 out of 5 stars I do not know my own way to the sea
Joanna Newsom is one of the weirdest folksters around today, with her trippy little pastoral melodies and that incredibly weird, stoned-fairy voice. Lisez davantage

Published on Feb 23 2007 by E. A Solinas

5.0 out of 5 stars an interesting new voice
Instantly loved this album. If cats could sing, this is what they'd sound like. In a nice way. Happy contented cats. Fluffy. Naive and childlike (but not childish).

Buy it.

Published on Mar 14 2006 by karma20

5.0 out of 5 stars Courage and Purity=Truth
The CD was an unexpected gift and a gift it was! The card read, "Give this a few tries." Well, the first nano second of music broke through years of personal, illusive... Lisez davantage

Published on July 16 2004 by sniklefritz

5.0 out of 5 stars by all means, listen to tracks online
Some reviewers below have complained about Joanna Newsom's "wretched" voice, perhaps because they were hoping for Joni Mitchell or Joan Baez. Lisez davantage

Published on July 16 2004

2.0 out of 5 stars Strange
"Milk-Eyed Mender" is certainly not for everyone, and though respectable for its stark originality is nothing short of an "acquired taste." Ms. Lisez davantage

Published on July 16 2004 by R

1.0 out of 5 stars Sorry, but no.
My Father bought this CD based on the glowing reviews from the New York Times. We both recoiled in disbelief as the harp & keyboard drowned out into wretched sounding vocals... Lisez davantage

Published on July 16 2004 by C. Kim

1.0 out of 5 stars Sorry, but no.
My Father bought this CD based on the glowing reviews from the New York Times. We both recoiled in disbelief as the harp & keyboard drowned out into wretched sounding vocals... Lisez davantage

Published on July 15 2004 by C. Kim

5.0 out of 5 stars Love it or Hate it
People will compare Joanna Newsom to Bjork and this is a good comparison. They don't sound alike, (Bjork is more siren, Joanna is more coal minor, and I mean that in the best way... Lisez davantage

Published on July 15 2004 by Sam Bauman

5.0 out of 5 stars "Whimsically Poetic, She Soars and Sails" says NY Times
I, too, bought this album on the basis of the New York Times glowing review of her concerts in New York City and I am so glad I did. Lisez davantage

Published on July 2 2004 by Claudia G. Goddard

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Promising Voice from San Francisco's Folk Scene
There seems to be a high tide of young, female singer-songwriters rising everywhere, and Joanna Newsom is another wonderful example of it, a young woman making intelligent, daring... Lisez davantage

Published on Jun 3 2004 by Juan Mobili

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

› See all 23 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Search Listmania!