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January 30, 2007
Ys - Joanna Newsom
This is dense music; challenging, intricate, and confusing. After one listen, you might be forgiven for thinking it's all just one long stream of consciousness. Newsom's vocal never seems to stop, and seldom repeats anything resembling a chorus. She shouts like Bjork, she croaks like Billie Holiday, and shifts octaves like Joni Mitchell, yet is completely unique. Her instrument of choice is a harp, which also never stops, but disappointingly plays mostly a background role and doesn't really get as much prominence as .
After my second listen, the melodies started to permeate my subconscious, and made me want to listen again. I'm on listen five now and I'm only just starting to come to grips with the differences between the five tracks, but am increasingly interested in the stories being told. Snippets of songs are stuck in my head, and I need to hear them more.
The songs are about, well, I'm not much closer to discovering that yet than when I began. There is so much to assimilate it's a bit overwhelming, but I'm going to find out.
If you're tired of the run-of-the-mill ten standard songs per CD, all having simple structures, and want something a bit different, you could do worse than this. It's not easy though - you'll have to work at it.
Update: So now I've been listening to Ys for several weeks, and I can't get it out of my head, and I still only understand a small fraction of it. It's definitely the best album I've heard in a long time.
Posted by se71 at January 30, 2007 01:50 PM
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