Ys

 

 

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probably the best album that came out in 2007. it's only 5 songs, but each one is long in length and never tires. beautiful album. even if you're not into "freak folk," pick this up. you won't be disappointed.

Both Joanna Newsom albums are amazing in their own way. They're different but yet so beautiful and unique. On Ys, Newsom goes deeper with much more powerful lyrics and a more mature sound. The five 10 minute + songs complete eachother perfectly, with a blend of melancholic french horns, pretty violins and joanna's comforting voice and harp. Nothing in this world will ever sound the same again. Brilliant from start to finish.
(backing vocals from Smog singer's bill callahan on "Only skin")

It's not very often that an album comes along that defies categorisation and more rarely that it seems impossible even to trace its influences and origins.This is such an album.

I can't remember the last time I heard an album that seemed to reinvent the possibilities in music itself. I'd like to say it's a ground-breaking album but the style is too 'of itself', creating its own hermetically sealed universe into which it allows us to teleport;so it's hard to see it having much influence on the wider musical world.


I recommend if at all possible that you try and listen to the album in a distraction free environment (yes I'm talking darkened room, phone off-the-hook) it's worth the effort.

Some listeners have referred to the several listens it takes to get in to the album, I found it took about a minute and a half.
Is it folk, prose-poetry,classical or just great pop music? There are perhaps elements of all and more.

A lot is sometimes made of how unusual her voice is, but to to be honest it is more distinctive than strange and it would be fair to say that her singing has become richer and more resonant than on her earlier works(I honestly think that most critics are still reviewing the way she sounded on "The Milkeyed Mender" but she has moved on since then, while still retaining her unique sound).

The album opens with "Emily" a song so rich in imagery and strong in melody it would justify the purchase of the album on its own, conjuring visions of meteorites, skimming stones and raging seas.The stories continue through out the five extended pieces, the orchestral arrangements by Van Dyke Parks contribute greatly to the feel of the work, at times darting in and out like fish, at others swooping and soaring like birds around the central core of harp and voice.
So rich is the sound created by that combination of harp and voice that it was only on seeing her live that I realised that "Sawdust and Diamonds" (track 3) features no orchestration.

The thing that strikes me most about this music is richness of its melodic content, this makes it far more accessible than you might expect.
Allow this music into your heart and it can transport you into other times and places and leave you with an aching sense of loss when you have to leave.

Buy this album if you love music but aren't afraid to embrace something truly different.

A final word on categorisation of music. I hate it! This need to pigeon-hole and fence music within little boundaries. If anything new or excitingly different comes along (like this), instead of celebrating its singular beauty, there is a rush to be the first to coin the term that will peg it back. If that weren't bad enough there are a million followers-on who have to prove how smart they are by using the terminology as if it were there own. Thus we have people describing this album as 'freak-folk' a category which, if it exists at all, has been used to describe acoustic driven performers with a hypnotic trippy rythmic feel. Joanna Newsom has actively denied the tag herself and her music is actually nothing like anything in the genre (if it even exists) in fact the only connection is that she has been on stage with some acts that hover on the fringes of the genre. It really comes down to lazy journalism and second-rate 'would-be-critics'who'd like to appear smart at the expense of artists who possess genuine talent.

For all those people who need a category for this album here is one: Joanna Newsom's music.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Five Beautiful Epic Songs from Newsom
I usually write reviews for movies but I've been listening to this disc since November and I have yet to get sick of it. Lisez davantage

Published on April 4 2008 by K. Driscoll

5.0 out of 5 stars Sunken cities
Joanna Newsom hasn't lost her freakfolk sound. She's just expanded it.

And she strays from conventional freakfolk in her second album, "Ys," by sticking to... Lisez davantage

Published on Feb 22 2007 by E. A Solinas

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