Joanna Newsom - Divers (clusterfuck topic tbd)

http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/08/joanna-newsom-announces-new-album-divers-shares-sapokanikan-listen/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky9Ro9pP2gc

old lady cat voice

CHICKEN
SANDWICH

I miss the garlic pressed goose vocal stylings

Been pretty desperate for this album to be announced.

Song is great. hits me hard when it moves into its 2nd form

awesome

yes! hurrah!

I liked that one time when she rhymed "caravel" with "Cair Paravel"...

Sapokanikan was the name of one of several Lenape villages that archaeologists have identified as existing on Manhattan Island prior to the coming of Europeans. It was located in the southwest portion of the island, on the shores of a trout stream the Indians called Minetta. Stretching things just a bit, one might say the members of this seasonal community were the first residents of Greenwich Village.

Yes, this is very good news.

I'm sure I've said it elsewhere, but I spent way too long avoiding Joanna Newsom because she seemed, on paper, pretty distinctly Not My Thing. If, however, that paper had read "dark fairytales by a female Cormac McCarthy", I'd have been much more intrigued.

hyped

melanie vibes

oh hey it's not a 6xLP

I am not in the mood today to have the word "ozymandian" sung at me

Also her house looks like Aladdin fucking the Genie http://la.curbed.com/archives/2014/07/41_photos_inside_andy_samberg_and_joanna_newsoms_mindblowing_moorcrest_estate.php

*patiently awaits the unicorn memes*

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/80/46/cb/8046cbaa82e8b6e481e58a9ddc287c75.jpg

No harp!

(On the single, that is. Also: video ^^ directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.)

that is pretty sweet house i must say

i love that house

I feel like I could live there and no one would notice

Have we determined definitively that Joanna Newsom isn't an extended Kaufman-esque SNL sketch?

that song is like a warning to all the ukulele cutesy poos out there. pack your ukes up, bitchez, big momma's back in town!

i love joanna so much and i hate you all

jk

It sounds a lot like a Have One On Me track. She had been doing pretty well at finding new styles from release to release up to now.

i think it starts off sounding like hoom (lol, hoom) and then develops into something else

gone full patrick wolf with the recorders I see

ad;lfkkjadf'df;lkakjdff;!!!!

wasn't expecting this news at all, very excited! I really like this new song although it does seem to stick fairly closely with the HOOM vibe, which is ok by me. I was starting to thing that she was basically retired.

also, nice cover art. Strong cover connection with:

http://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/2252/cover_41211028102010.jpg

I was starting to thing that she was basically retired.

Me too. Unfortunately, it is not so.

hey everyone, no one cares that you find Joanna Newsom bothersome or whatever

"gone full patrick wolf" yes please

hey everyone, no one cares that you find Joanna Newsom bothersome or whatever

um welcome to a joanna newsom thread on ilm, a music message board on the internet

http://grandchalonpoker.com/assets/images/Adherer/unicorn-riding-rainbow.jpg

http://joannanewsomfashion.tumblr.com/post/33857487709

^ Explains the reference to Florry Walker.

The restoration started at the top left-hand corner, but it was only near the end of the process, as Varcoe-Cocks reached the bottom right-hand corner, that he discovered that Streeton had scratched the name of a woman, "Florry Walker", into the still-wet paint three times, probably using a pin.

As the conservator went back over the artwork with a microscope he found there was also "Florry is my sweetheart" and "Florry/Smike", the artist's Dickensian nickname. All were invisible to the naked eye.

An X-ray of the painting taken before the restoration began had shown that Streeton originally had painted a naked woman with her back turned and long hair falling over her shoulders. This figure was later painted out and replaced by male bathers.

Could this have been Florry Walker? And if so, who was she, and what did it all mean?

One-stop hateration shop, y'all: Things You Just Don't Care About

hey everyone, no one cares that you find Joanna Newsom bothersome or whatever

Well that's clearly not true.

so mad that pta directs this video. do videos by great bands, you good directors. gah already, feh

more like joanna noisome

I would love for a linguist to break down her singing accent for me

wish she'd troll w/ the full Milk Eyed Mender harsh voice on this album

Well the jabs against her are the same as back then, so job done I guess.. Wish the haters didn't take as much space as they do, though.

I think she developed a vocal condition which means she can't sing that way anymore.

I think she developed a vocal condition which means she can't sing that way anymore.

Breaking news: people who didn't like Joanna Newsom before still don't like Joanna Newsom. Please keep us updated on all the developments in this story. Please.

feel like only a podcast could cure them

update 4 u. I still don't like her music.

I think she developed a vocal condition which means she can't sing that way anymore.

probably less "developed" and more "was asking for", given the mechanics behind singing and how painful (to the throat, not the ears) what she was doing sounded

RIP larynx

xp ozymandian

hey everyone, no one cares that you find Joanna Newsom bothersome or whatever

um welcome to a joanna newsom thread on ilm, a music message board on the internet

hence me making a pointless comment

Breaking news: people who didn't like Joanna Newsom before still don't like Joanna Newsom. Please keep us updated on all the developments in this story. Please.

I ate a unicorn

i liked the last album a lot, found it amazing really, so i am looking forward to hearing this

Yeah, it was probably the best album that came out that year. But she used to sing in a peculiar voice so it's probably also garbage.

1. By no means was it.
2. It was.

don't you have some old spoon records to jizz over

Hello, my name is Johnny Fever. I'm typically easy going and open to loving many types of music. I do make sure, though, to carve time out of my busy schedule to endlessly slam Joanna Newsom and, if necessary, people who won't shut up about her. BECAUSE SHE IS TERRIBLE!

:D xoxoxoxo

JF, I would like to explain objective facts to you, basically they are things like 'Joanna Newsom is great' that can't be argued with because science.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mh1omjfKPU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmePpqPl9nw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iby_PR6nlr4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZPgGxmFnE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asq2mzj8PEE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnvK60ylKIY

no artist should be judged by his or her fans' terrible cover versions

debatable

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kendrick+lamar+ukulele+cover

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=metallica+ukelele

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=slayer+ukelele

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=beethoven+ukelele

xp uh em, let me finish. that is because an artist should be judged by his or her songmeanings.com interpretations.

from postmeanings.thread:

Hello, my name is Johnny Fever. I'm typically easy going and open to loving many types of music. I do make sure, though, to carve time out of my busy schedule to endlessly slam Joanna Newsom and, if necessary, people who won't shut up about her. BECAUSE SHE IS TERRIBLE!

:D xoxoxoxo

― Johnny Fever, Monday, August 10, 2015 1:29 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Fever says his name is 'Johnny Fever' because that is actually not his name. Though he is 'typically' easy going and open to many types of music, Fever notes in this post that there are indeed instances when he is not so easy going and open. 'carve' has double meaning here because Fever is a professional pumpkin carver. 'busy' is likely sarcastic because halloween is more than 2 months away.

I think it's fair for JN fans to ask, isn't there a place around here where I can go to get pumped about a new JN album without people just treating it like a pile-on jokefest that never ends? However there is also an answer to that ask, it just arrived via Unicorngram, and it's "no"

look there are two kinds of music fans: those that enjoy some good 'gism and those that don't. Joanna's songs load me up with that good 'gism is the thing.

'gism is of course short for syllogism

Majority of the posts actually positive so far?

All those clips except "81" are songs from her first album, right? The woman that does "81" sounds good to me. I don't know, I especially enjoy listening to her songs with a lyric sheet. New song is beautiful.

the multi-tracked vibrato minute of this is so rad & promising

that song is intersting, i could get into this. i've sort of avoided her because she's california royalty, which i know is like my own hang-up. well i guess i don't have to buy anything.

Ys is still is that mindblowing monument of an album.

is it too much to ask the no-newsom crew to comes up with some new zings, you guys have had like 5 years.

look there are two kinds of music fans: those that enjoy some good 'gism and those that don't. Joanna's songs load me up with that good 'gism is the thing.

― oh, i am a lonlely poster. i live in a box of posts. (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, August 10, 2015 4:27 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'gism is of course short for syllogism

― oh, i am a lonlely poster. i live in a box of posts. (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, August 10, 2015 4:27 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is straight up gross

just trying to touch hearts larger than a thimble, but I apologize

cad otm though

the multi-tracked vibrato minute of this is so rad & promising

yeah, i've only heard her music casually, but this the first thing that makes me want to hear more.

Have One On Me is most probably my favorite album ever.

hoom was my favorite album of 2010 definitely

"in california" makes me instantly cry

hoom was my favorite album of 2010 definitely

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Monday, August 10, 2015 7:35 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

um excuse me it's "whom"

HOOM had some amazing highlights but I never listen to the whole thing

Ys is just the right portion of Newsom for me

I'll ride for Milk-Eyed Mender all day but let's be honest there's no car on the road that gives better mileage than unicorn jokes

the lyrics to the new song are also great but imo she's a great lyricist and only gets better with each record

so the arrangements could be roughly identical to hoomicorn and there'd still probably be a lot there for me in terms of progression

ok actually never mind "waltz of the 1st lightborne" should have the texture a van der graaf generator song

strange animal!

liking the new track but can't shake the similarity to you and me bess. similar progression and turnaround in the first half

why can't this be a safe space for joanna newsom fandom

huh i thought jc loves chachi was a legit newsom hater, yr troll game is solid.

love the last couple of minutes of this, the multi-tracked vocals, the woodwinds that sound like fripp-y guitar or fripp-y guitar that sounds like woodwinds, v nice

why can't this be a safe space for joanna newsom fandom

― j. winters (josh), Tuesday, August 11, 2015 1:44 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah looking back at the HOOM thread and it's seriously bothersome, verging on bullying.

cmon some signifiers are just inherently ridiculous and should be given no quarter

https://thebabarazzi.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/tumblr_lpq17wqzl61r03771o1_500.jpg

In many cases, people justifiably get shit for spraying troll piss all over a thread whose subject they don't care for. I don't know why there are exceptions.

'Spraying Troll Piss' is a song on the new album, btw, iirc.

the list is shrinking daily but there are still things on ilx that it's cool to be a dick about

originality of zings is entirely the issue imo, zings are fine but voice-is-like-cats jokes are embarrassing to read

YOUR FACE IS EMBARRASSING TO READ!

haha, i'm done on this thread, i swear. enjoy your cat lady, you guys! i just had to get that out of my system...

(i tried to play the new JN song for my wife last night and she had to leave the room. true love!!!)

voice is like a cat-lady's, which is embarrassing because it's basic-level sexist. xxxp oh look a not-apology

the quaint thing about this thread so far is it's 100% dudes either "loving" or "not loving" a woman's music. except for la lechera calling out the jizz joke.

i'm not even much of a JN fan (yet?) and the zings are tired itt

there's something much worse than "not loving" going on here

i misread, he did say "old lady cat voice" which is just kind of whatever so i take back my risibleness

it was a play on old man hat voice. the yin to JN's yang.

I can't speak for every troll, but there's no misogyny in my JN hatred. What hearing her voice brings out of me is the same intense revulsion I get when Dan Bejar or Antony Hegarty sings, because none of them make music that is good enough for me to get past what they sound like when they sing (although JN has the added layer of being very "ren faire" and playing a harp, so she's going to get 3 times the trolling).

it makes me cringe. what can i say. the only part i dug from the new song was the frippertronic kate bush part at the end.

except for la lechera calling out the jizz joke.

― e-bouquet (mattresslessness), Tuesday, August 11, 2015 8:16 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thing is there's a JN lyric apparently about semen and it requires a syllogism to get to that conclusion and too much coffee

Is the title meant as like Olympic divers or deep sea divers or divers as in the olde tyme way of saying "diverse"

the normal response to revulsion is just to stay away.

http://image4.spreadshirtmedia.com/image-server/v1/products/111488380/views/1,width=235,height=235,appearanceId=1/Why-Be-Normal-.png

there's really no extracting joanna newsom-hate from our misogynist culture - it informs all of our tastes and word choice. it's quite possible my desire to verbally snicker-snag when asked to earnestly engage with what sounds like someone playing a fubar-scratched CD of The Kick Inside is nothing but a macho defense mechanism that has to be transcended if we're ever to achieve true understanding and mutual respect. i will fully admit that.

I guess there's a good chance this song (recorded live 2012) will be on the album (maybe as track 7 "Divers")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuN-4gykysU

Keep Austin ilxor.com Weird offended.

I've never got into JN as much as I should. A friend gave me a mix CD with "Book of Right On" on it back when Milk Eyed Mender came out. Loved the song, but never checked out the album. Then Ys was just too much. I don't think I was ready for 15 minute harp epics or whatever. So I skipped HOOM after that. I really like this track though.

Again, my previously-uninformed opinion of JN was infected by many of the same (un-/underinformed) prejudices expressed by the haters itt. The type of music she makes is not the type of music I typically enjoy. But I engaged with her music after a stretch of being put off by the descriptors and the ambience suggested by those descriptors and I'm really glad that I did. She's responsible some of my favorite music from the last ten years.

90% of the objectionable voice stuff (arguably objectionable, as I came to enjoy the way it harkened back to early-20th C. Ozark folk recordings) is from her first album, btw. She's done a lot of work on her voice and it's really quite lovely now.

She's done a lot of work on her voice and it's really quite lovely now.

If I hadn't already listened to "Sapokanikan," I might believe you.

Ys is my least favorite of the three, btw. Still good but easily the least accessible. Interested newbies should listen to HOOM first, I'd argue.

xxxp check out 'en gallop'. I think you'd like all of Milk Eyed Mender if you liked "Book of Right On".

Cool.

I disagree newbies should go to HOOM. Maybe if we're looking for individual album tracks. Ys has the majestic melodies circling around each other and the feel of coherence over the other albums.

admittedly i havent spent very much time listening to her but easily found tracks on HOOM to be the more accessible than anything on ys or milk-eyed

i didn't particularly enjoy this new track

right now i kind of just more admire her than enjoy her, that might change though

Ys is the one that got me hooked. I still think it's her most powerful.

huh i thought jc loves chachi was a legit newsom hater, yr troll game is solid.

no, I loved MEM - like, deeply - wasn't super-sold on Ys and thought HOOM was pretty lol

reeeeeeeeasonably certain giving shit to people who make records is a big part of this board crossing all gender et al lines. however, it's true that JN's an easy target and that issues of the constructed "feminine" etc come into play here. be that as it may, the countermove -- "there's no way your clowning is in earnest, it has to be about something deeper otherwise why didn't you clown [other artist who didn't inspire the same revulsion]" is really infantile discourse imo. it's also basically the entire internet right now so w/e

would be interested to know what was lol about HOOM to a MEM-lover

i dunno, you could ask yourself, are you adding anything of value to this thread, or are you detracting from its value

how the fuck can they afford that house

it was only $6.25 million, obviously a shit load of money but less than i would've thought for that house

samberg prob makes a ton of money?

newsom is also a fairly successful musician but i don't really know what someone at her level makes

Haven't we had this conversation already?

Oh yeah, on the HOOM thread

i dunno, you could ask yourself, are you adding anything of value to this thread, or are you detracting from its value

did this math. thread is more valuable for my unicorn jokes. every time I make one the thread's value goes up

would be interested to know what was lol about HOOM to a MEM-lover

MEM has Sadie, This Side of the Blue, and Bridges & Balloons: tremendous songs despite plenty of "oof" turns lyrically to my ear

HOOM hasn't got a single song within spitting distance of those three imo

I have an impossible discussion within me regarding Joanna Newsom and how it shakes me and my own practice, and a lot of the non-cwsm artists working in this kind of post-genre indie apocalypse where any and all compositional tools are available.

I don't know if it's possible to discuss my thoughts without making statements that are enormously problematic. But I believe two things. First, that Joanna's music gets worse as she gets more ambitious, more self-aware, and more deliberately challenging with the flexing of her muscles. Second, that my feeling of "what makes her music worse" is not a misogynistic response as a listener, but rather a dislike of when a female (or queer, in my own more pertinent case) musician asserts his/her feminine/queer identity by creating art that is ambitious, self-aware, putting one's talents on a showboat so that one's art DEMANDS admiration and respect.

Considering that music criticism has always wanted to pigeonhole any sort of female musician as having zero agency either as songwriter or producer, it's only natural that a female songwriter/producer will desire to assert their authorship, either verbally in the press, or compositionally. Push their talents to the limit to demand the listener show respect. There's a fundamental need to show the world that one has chops instead of simply allowing one's chops to exist.

But it doesn't make for good music. I feel like this is why so many loud men want to shoo away the My Brightest Diamonds of the world; the music can feel demonstrative instead of being real.

Joanna is real so often, though. My favourite Joanna moments (all of MEM, "Cosmia", the shorter vignettes on HOOM) are the instances where she simply stumbles around her emotional and intellectual landscape, aided by her immense talents. When she simply exists as a writing, singing, music-making person, rather than feeling the need to impress the listener at every moment.

This feeling permeates through my taste in just about all "indie" female and queer singer-songwriters, infinitely preferring when their music is effortless (Sufjan's most recent as opposed to everything that came before, St. Vincent's first two, tUnE-yArDs' first album, Antony at his most emotionally barren, Jana Hunter as opposed to Lower Dens, this Holly Herndon over that, this Grouper over that, this Bjork over that, and so on). But it's impossible for me to extract how much of this is tied to, like, the Kristevan idea of how-to-create-good-feminist-art-in-a-culture-of-misogyny (don't think, just do), and how much is tied to my own baggage.

Forgive me if I'm way off the mark or this post poses some mega-problems, or that my queer/feminist take is not particularly well-informed.

<3 and obviously, it's the culture that is to blame here, not the creator <3

HOOM hasn't got a single song within spitting distance of those three imo

in california, does not suffice >>>>>>

but they're such different records compositionally that i get why you think that

xxxp i never had any interest in her before HOOM got good reviews and i just felt like plonking down some money for something as dumbly ambitious as a triple album

i liked most, i think, what you were getting at with the 'music-making person' aspects of the record, and i did like the harp music and found some of it interesting/affecting (a bit draggier in some places), and really liked the band she put together

but what floored me at the time, not too far through my first listen maybe, was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude, that someone could put such an overabundance of music on record, and obviously have put so much into it. it's never seemed particularly overindulgent to me because i haven't felt like it's anything i had to listen to: it just stays there, and i can always find out more about it if i want. but musicians in general had been seeming a lot less generous, a lot less giving of themselves (cast that in musical rather than personal terms, i don't feel any particularly biographical/'identifying' connection with newsom), at the time i first heard the record. so it seemed to come out of nowhere, completely gratuitous.

i don't read that in terms of impressing or demanding respect, personally. i don't follow the lyrics too closely but i suppose the whole idea might have been at play in the record anyway, given the title.

xp i like fgti's take except imo ys is her at her most ambitious and that's why i like it the least (except for "cosmia" which is all time). have one on me wasn't a scaling back in length but imo its rhetorical and musical flourishes were more careful and subtle, which i guess is generated from being "more self-aware"

The thing about this song, I think, is that it doesn't really do all that much. There are verses and there's a chorus and then there's the long sprechstimme bit at the end with a coda. Is that really pushing things too much? There are nuances within the structure, too - the way the arrangement for the verse structure changes, the fact that the sprechstimme part blooms out into this developmental passage where she's actually singing in harmony in the end. This is all a virtuosity that I want to afford her music.

really liked the band she put together

otm

I guess what made me reel from the first listen-through of this new track was the immediate deployment of words like "Ozymandian" and the fussy piano parts. Made me think about what I love about Nina Nastasia, PJ Harvey, even Rufus, who succeeds to my ears best when he's ticking the boxes of what-makes-a-good-pop-track ("Poses") or just letting his fingers and voice fall where they will ("The Art Teacher").

@ BradNelson it's true that Ys is amazing at its best ("Emily", "Cosmia") but fussy and insufferable at its worst ("Monkey And Bear").

And the reason that I feel so uncomfortable about typing about all of this is that there's a shade of "what I want my women and queers to sound like" which is also part of the problem of misogynist listening, let everyone just follow their bliss, ideally

i guess i don't like ys the least bc it's ambitious, there's just no breathing room at all, every idea at once

Second, that my feeling of "what makes her music worse" is not a misogynistic response as a listener, but rather a dislike of when a female (or queer, in my own more pertinent case) musician asserts his/her feminine/queer identity by creating art that is ambitious, self-aware, putting one's talents on a showboat so that one's art DEMANDS admiration and respect.

TBH I am having difficulty parsing how this isn't a misogynistic response. It seems like you are saying that for women, exerting effort/control = inferior art without interrogating what "exerting effort" means, or why this is something intrinsically detrimental to female/queer artists, where the implication is that it is not intrinsically detrimental to non-female/non-queer artists. There's an undercurrent of essentialism here that I am reacting very negatively towards that runs parallel to statements like "black people are the best dancers because of their natural, effortless rhythm".

Am I misinterpreting you? xp and I see you are addressing some of this, so maybe the issue here is the definition of "exerting effort" and why that would be a negative.

There is nothing wrong with "exerting effort", obviously. But in specifically a "post-genre" genre, for lack of a better term-- I guess you could call Joni the first and best example of this style of album-making-- there is a moment when the exertion feels as if its demonstrative, trying to prove ones own agency to the audience, instead of simply allowing one's agency to serve an artistic thesis.

And also, does that agency need to be proven before both artist and listener can really relax? When Carrie And Lowell came out, I was left wondering, for example, if the record would've been as well received had Suf not already been established in most people's eyes as a heavy. Had that been his debut, how would people have taken it?

The reason why I'm speaking specifically of this nebulous "post-genre" is that if one is exerting effort toward creating great dance, pop, rap, classical or whatever, there's already a standard, a series of boxes to be ticked, one's agency is directed toward making it bang as opposed to "some other reason"

but what floored me at the time, not too far through my first listen maybe, was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude, that someone could put such an overabundance of music on record, and obviously have put so much into it. it's never seemed particularly overindulgent to me because i haven't felt like it's anything i had to listen to: it just stays there, and i can always find out more about it if i want. but musicians in general had been seeming a lot less generous, a lot less giving of themselves (cast that in musical rather than personal terms, i don't feel any particularly biographical/'identifying' connection with newsom), at the time i first heard the record. so it seemed to come out of nowhere, completely gratuitous.

wow this is right on ime.

I really don't get the implicit demand for respect that JM is supposedly making, at least not any moreso than the implicit demand for respect made by anyone who's putting their art into the public sphere.

i don't know if i agree with it but i think fgti's reason for it above could plausibly work - is it that, basically, you don't do something out-of-the-boxes unless your effort entails some kind of extra self-assertion, as well, basically?

yeah j. otm re: hoom

I'm having trouble guessing if Medulla is good or bad bjork for fgti

there is a moment when the exertion feels as if its demonstrative

I think phrasing it that way is problematic because there's on open question about the extent to which this is a projection. Maybe that's not even the point; maybe the point is strictly about songwriting economy vs. virtuosity?

There is nothing wrong with "exerting effort", obviously. But in specifically a "post-genre" genre, for lack of a better term-- I guess you could call Joni the first and best example of this style of album-making-- there is a moment when the exertion feels as if its demonstrative, trying to prove ones own agency to the audience, instead of simply allowing one's agency to serve an artistic thesis.

I don't know that I agree that there is a distinction between "trying to prove ones own agency to the audience" and "simply allowing one's agency to serve an artistic thesis" beyond case A being either A) a failure to present the artistic thesis; or B) a successful presentation of an insufficiently engaging artistic thesis. Both ways of looking at it are clearly subjective but one focuses on the motivations of the artist and the other focuses on the impact of the work the artist has produced; for myself as a consumer of music, I don't always feel comfortable dabbling in artistic intent unless it's blatantly stated by the artist. Take as a related example the fracas about Cocorosie; every song they've produced that deals with ethnicity in any meaningful way has also struck me as blatantly racist. This, beyond anything else, makes me reject them; various interviews about their music where they seemed completely unable to grasp why anyone would view their music this way cemented my opinion about their artistic intent and their manifest inability to convey the meaning they intended. Joanna Newsom does a bunch of stuff that is decidedly Not My Thing but I don't see how any of the music I've heard hasn't been crystal clear about what it was and what it was trying to do; I can't and would never fault her for that.

And also, does that agency need to be proven before both artist and listener can really relax?

This is an interesting question because the answer seems to change depending on the artist. (See, for example, Bjork vs Janelle Monae)

(This is extra-interesting when you start expanding into things where people now look at genres like hip-hop, which used to be about lyrical acuity, rhyming ability and "flow", and say that you don't need to exhibit any of these qualities to be considered a good rapper.)

I checked out of here earlier but now that I've caught up, it sounds like the criticism is essentially "trying too hard"?? I'd posit that ppl in positions of power often (ime) criticize those who are not in trad positions of power for trying too hard but that's because they have had the luxury of being recognized for their work without having to exert as much effort. Meanwhile Joanna is cramming 15 ideas into every 30 sec of song :(

I don't know if she'll ever top "Sawdust & Diamonds" for me, but I'm excited nonetheless.

xpost "JN is trying too hard" or possibly "JM expresses herself differently than I want JN to express herself". Both of which are more about the listener than they are about JN.

Not sure I would view Joanna newsome "trying too hard" as all that different in intent to something like Roy harper and his side long song suites just coz she's a woman

Obviously I'm not a woman though so

I'd forgotten how great "Colleen" is. That's one of her best, I think.

@ DJP, yes that's a very good point, that a thesis must at least be visible, and that's def the case with Joni at her most ambitious. And as I said upthread, this is not a criticism of Newsom but a dissection of how people (i.e. myself) listen to her and other female musicians working in an open-format genre.

@ Grafton, I love Medulla compositionally, but don't like the timbre of the vocals on her middle few records, too sibilant. Bjork's latter-day not-even-trying-to-be-hooky records are to my ears the best and brightest example of a female musician raising a middle finger to the greedy-consumers of the world who just want hits, and creating something new and challenging and memorable, those records are amazing; and yet I still prefer her early pop stuff.

there is a moment when the exertion feels as if its demonstrative

I think phrasing it that way is problematic because there's on open question about the extent to which this is a projection. Maybe that's not even the point; maybe the point is strictly about songwriting economy vs. virtuosity?

@ Tim, absolutely it's a projection, but I'm typing about how we as listeners respond to arty female-or-queer musicians making music, trying to figure out why the Whineys of the world just have no time for any ambitious females

the who now

Andrew Bird gets similar "trying too hard" criticisms for his lyrics. I'm realizing I have no idea if he is straight or not though...

Not sure I would view Joanna newsome "trying too hard" as all that different in intent to something like Roy harper and his side long song suites just coz she's a woman

― feargal czukay (NickB), Tuesday, August 11, 2015 1:55 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark

i could be wrong (because i don't know much about Roy Harper or whether or not he has vociferous haters) but i haven't ever heard anyone complaining about Roy Harper by cracking jokes about bodily effluvium. Maybe they do and I just haven't ever seen it. But I doubt it, and that's why it's different when it's a woman being grandiose imo.

that joke was not at JN's expense

was that clear to everyone but me?
is it absurd to hope that i'm not alone in thinking that jizz jokes aren't funny/are gross regardless of your intent?

It probably was not clear, but I was being sincere when I apologized for it being gross (which I can see that it was). But the whole thing was a bad pun on "a thimble's worth of milky moon", syllogism, and songmeanings.com song interpretations.

i did appreciate that you apologized
honestly!

Let's not pretend that Stormcock is great beyond "Hors D'Oeuvres", nor that Roy Harper, despite his classic status, is not also totally insufferable. As for Andrew Bird, I think many/most academy-trained musicians delving into pop naturally have to battle (or embrace) the desire to demonstrate an appropriate amount of agency, it's virtually coded into the DNA of classical training

Is van dyke fartz on this? (Lol)

a pun I also wouldn't want to get behind

These latest, de-trainwrecked turns in the discussion got me thinking about Richard Dawson. Nothing Important shares a lot of quirks with Ys, but didn't seem to get any flak for jumbled tempos, reaching lyrics and vocal tics. I like Dawson's record, and Newsom's is all-time for me. But if Dawnson released a song where the first word "Ozymandian" I feel like he'd get a hearty knowing chuckle for it. Cant help thinking being a guy with a guitar provided a flak jacket.

fgti did give him flak iirc

i am for the record into "ozymandian" but i would be

Feels like 2010 was yesterday.

http://imgur.com/3E1hl.jpg

i'll retroactively give that dawson record flack, it sucked

hey, this thread got good

i like 'have one on me' more than the others because it presents overweening ambition as something of a free lunch. 'ys' seems to demand that the listener get on its side to an extent i'm not quite down with -- i have a friend who went to an ATP event where she performed it in its entirety, twice, and broke down in tears, apparently, at the same exact point, twice.

whereas 'hoom' is pleasant and texturally interesting and diverting and succeeds on these less ambitious levels sufficiently that possibility of unpacking it is like, hey, well, i guess that's there too! -- i mean, i did spend a while Thinking About It, but that was after vibing on the outro to 'good intentions', and enjoying the moore brothers' harmonies when they showed up, or the vocal rush at the end of the title. but it's a very friendly edifice; the listener can wander in and out, stumble upon moments of ambition, in a way that avoids the (for me) fairly suffocating construction of ys.

though that the new song is some kind of mythopoeic read on the history of nyc makes me suspect it will be harder to pull that trick off on this record

i think that's pretty much right. there is something demanding about ys, i hate the string arrangements on that record and find that they add to the claustrophobia

I enjoy deeming music to be trying too hard but I also often love the excess energy you get with v demonstrative music

a lot of JN is absurd and posturing but I think sometimes at her most overblown she seems most sincere

Claustrophobia isn't necessarily a bad thing. I kinda agree with using that word about the arrangements of ys, but what I like is how these moments in the songs rise above it and I'm guessing that one of those is when your xp friend cried and that it was partly because of the heavy arrangement. Like she gets herself weighed down in these big suites and finds ways out of them and it's really beautiful and uplifting stuff. Also just catchy.

a lot of JN is absurd and posturing but I think sometimes at her most overblown she seems most sincere

more accurate to say most direct, sincerity is not a v useful term imo

just to be clear, my story about my friend was meant to be a criticism, not an endorsement

I'm trying to imagine a way for a composition like "Sapokanikan" to exist without the element of "absurd posturing" that you charge her with. I tend to think that it most likely wouldn't exist at all. If it did, it would have to find some other extraordinary way to make up for the charm that is lost.

There is definitively a notion of 'omg she can create that' that I enjoy with Newsom, not unlike some rappers blowing my mind with their stamina and flow.

Yeah I can't fathom how you would begin writing any of her songs. I guess it's like anything where you come up w a melody or harmony and do variations but it's still super impressive.

I think in the past I would've made more fun of her but now that things like 3 Wolves T-Shirt is a super mainstream and old joke I feel less tendency to zing. Plus she is making super ornate weird harp music and has always stuck to that. Rather than exploit music from another culture like just about every other act these days she does what she knows and what she knows is this psych folk that speaks to her progressive west coast roots.

never rly understood why her playing harp was taken as a solid ground for mockery (unless you're also laughing at i dunno jozef van wissem for playing lute, in which case hey follow your arrow i guess), but maybe because my entire knowledge of 'ren faire' comes from simpsons episodes

"Sapokanikan" has a rather good Genius page up already. I wouldn't have picked up on the art references.

there's also this:
http://culturedarm.com/themes-and-references-in-joanna-newsoms-sapokanikan/

The word "Sapokanikan" reminds me of ILX poster Sanpaku.

just caught up with this, will listen to new song later.

say what you will about JM but that small 6-piece band tour in support of Ys remains one of the best concerts I have ever seen, you could hear a pin drop in the sold-out crowd of 300+ during the very very quiet and beautiful end of 'Cosmia"

live show >>Ys >>MEM >> HOOM

uh I mean JN of course

joanna mewsom

"Sapokanikan" has a rather good Genius page up already. I wouldn't have picked up on the art references.

The Milky Moon msg board has been picking it apart for a couple of years since she played it live.

The announcement of Divers and the release of its first single, "Sapokanikan," articulated masterfully with a video by Paul Thomas Anderson, was as monumentally significant as an otherworldly visitation; what's more, it signaled the beginning times for a calculated meteor shower of Joanna Newsom headlines that will cosmically alter the life as we know it on this Earth! ...

From a press release. Masterfully! Monumentally! Otherworldly! Cosmically! Earth! I suspect this kind of prose won't win her any new fans.

is that a drag city press release? if so, it's more than likely someone's tongue was in their cheek...

gross

would you prefer that his tongue be in her cheek?

Pitch Perfect PR. Whose emails tend to be pretty straightforward.

tongue at ease

Second song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keke7BGzJPI

leaked

http://c85c7a.medialib.glogster.com/media/67/67e714b5384f0143c8f9b3073da39f2ff0442c2e679d6ae06884a3f7af90eda3/sad-unicorn.jpg

i am freakin' about this

Man this is good

I'm yet to get too excited about this record (not checked out the tracks online) but listened to 'Milk Eyed Mender' while reading the Stereogum interview and enjoyed both at that moment in time.

Been listening for a week or so. The title track is a real piece of work. Should have ten seconds of silence after it to let it sink in rather than have another song.

unreasonably stoked to have a new J-New album that isn't twelve years long

My local 70mm moviehouse showed a new PTA-directed video for "Divers" last weekend.

I'm curious who did which arrangements on this - some of the arrangements feel a lot busier than any from the previous albums and I don't know if I like that. Really love Sapokanikan and Divers though

are there more moments like the end of Sapokanikan?

Streaming here for the next couple of days, with Ann Powers's review: http://www.npr.org/2015/10/19/449323861/one-for-the-ages

lol

Joanna Newsom’s e-mail address is unicorntears2✧✧✧@ya✧✧✧.c✧✧. At least, it was in 2002, when she began handing out copies of “Walnut Whales,” an eight-song homemade CD that had a photocopied drawing on the front cover and her contact information on the back.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/26/precious-mettle

http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/dwarves/anotherclassic.html

relevant

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/have-another-one-on-me-the-return-of-joanna-newsom/

hyden is maybe the last person i want to read on newsom

who's he why is he bad

answer to both questions: he's a music writer

that grantland article is the worst shit ever

is the title pronounced 'diverse' y/n

I once saw an interview with joanna newsom where she discusses a video that exists of her performing on the harp when, at one point, a blister on her finger pops and shoots blood everywhere but she keeps on playing. I have not seen the actual video in question. Both this video and her casual manner of describing it seemed pretty badass. Also just being that good at the harp is fucking rad. Wish i liked her music more but i think it's my own deficiency

GIS for "joanna newsom bloody harp" sadly lacking

i cried my eyes out watching this last night. this song never fails to make me lose it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS3Z_hU4GL4

picked this up yesterday, and there's still lots to digest.

preliminary thoughts: this easily her most polished and generous work. On the last 2 albums there was a big focus on delaying big moments and stretching out thoughts as far as they'd go, here she is much more direct. I like that she plays a bunch of instruments on most tracks, I think her piano playing is underrated and continues to get better. The new tracks don't dig as deeply into her emotions, which maybe make them a bit more difficult to relate to. Lots of talk of wars and war memorials, not exactly sure what it all means though. Lends it a bit of a museum quality.

mind-bending LPs like Animal Collective’s Sung Tongs and the Fiery Furnaces’s Blueberry Boat

aoty

"More direct"??? Agree with you otherwise about its museum-quality. I find this really stilted and parlour-musicky. Miss the directness of her earlier work and the best parts of HOOM.

I mean more direct in terms of the arrangements and pacing of the songs, not so much the message of the lyrics and emotions conveyed

I once saw an interview with joanna newsom where she discusses a video that exists of her performing on the harp when, at one point, a blister on her finger pops and shoots blood everywhere but she keeps on playing. I have not seen the actual video in question. Both this video and her casual manner of describing it seemed pretty badass.

when i saw her in i think 2004 she was between songs cheerfully gluing up the holes in her fingertips caused by not having had the time to build her calluses before touring. \m/

Music made by a harp player performed by small chamber groups is always going to sound a little parlour-musicky, isn't it? Unless you're going the full Zeena Parkins or whatever.

I think finger and hand injuries are more common than we think. Most artists just blur through like a champ. Last time I saw Springsteen he opened his finger on his guitar, making for some dramatic pickguard smudges. And then there are stories of Flea sealing his funky-thumb with crazy glue. And of course
http://s50.photobucket.com/user/bpick999/media/pete_townshend_bleeds.jpg.html

http://www.mi.uni-koeln.de/~hannes/gallery/hannes/blood_pete.jpg

Crazy glue is crazy great. Tape is good if you don't have glue.

I love this album.

Yeah, me too. There's so much in this album. I agree about it having a museum quality, not only in terms of the war themes but the huge collection of keyboard instruments listed in the liner notes. I also don't find it quite as immediate as HOOM, or idk, not as dramatic.

The astonishing moments arrive with such velocity it's hard to keep up, but the last 30 seconds of "You Will Not Take My Heart Alive"...gosh. One place where the "so much," the constant surprise of the instrumentation, is expressed in miniature.

I had to look up what 101st Lightborne was about -- apparently, time colonists.

The whole record is personal, but a lot of what is most personal is conveyed through pure fiction or, sometimes, even science fiction—literally sci-fi. With “Waltz of the 101st Lightborne,” I’m contrasting this British Isles sea shanty with a narrative in which I’m talking about colonizing alternate iterations of the terrestrial position in the multiverse. Colonizing time sideways, front and back, traveling in four directions through time.

http://www.thefader.com/2015/10/19/joanna-newsom-divers-interview

digging her favorite GENTLE GIANT song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcFX9qFf6Ik

http://www.vogue.com/8204763/inherent-vice-joanna-newsom-1970s-songs/

anyone can do what she does.
there is no talent here.
let me know when she writes an actual song or an actual ambient track.
she's done nothing meaningful, yet.

I mean...the first two claims are just objectively false.

have you ever played a harp?
it easily sounds pretty.

hahahahahaahahaha hoo boy

yeah I'm not even gonna touch this one

but can she play the harp while drinking a mega-sized jar of tomato sauce? that's not easy at all

Now everything is cool, Drac's a part of the band
And my Monster Mash is the hit of the land
For you, ilx, this Mash post so witty:
have you ever played the harp? it easily sounds pretty.

Easy, easy
My harp and me
We make the pretty musics, easily

if i broke wind against a harp, i could sell it as her new single on a white label.

Have One (fart) On Me

no one is going to make a clusterfuck out of your challenging opinion, monster mash; try again

oh, come on, I was tempted to at least give it a try. a good clusterfuck is so hard to come by these days and the topic for this thread is still tbd.

"When people start to do things arbitrarily to grow that audience, and those choices are compromises, there’s a stink that their audience can smell, and it’s really hard to get off." lol liz phair

i'm sincere. i just feel like what she does is practically useless.

She should be doing something more... "useful"?

GUYS NO IT'S A TRAP

http://cdn.makeagif.com/media/10-09-2015/fe7f4q.gif

i can play the flute

i'm also good at playing the organ

but to what practical end?

anyone can do what she does.
there is no talent here.
let me know when she writes an actual song or an actual ambient track.
she's done nothing meaningful, yet.

― monster mash, Tuesday, November 3, 2015 11:42 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel that this post is aiming for meme status, and it may just achieve it.

#mykidcouldharpthat

I hate to derail this awesome conversation, but this is a fantastic video for a fantastic song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48xlgXqQKLA

That is a wonderful song. Some of the best lyrics she's written.

don't take it personally!
jeez. as long as you guys love music, then we're all friends!
i guess i just don't see the use in what she does.
if others do, then fine! jeez!

you never her.
i like the real music by the real artists, but this is a place of abuse and the occult.
you never know what real music is, because people like joanna newsome give it away freely.
she doesn't understand the value of music.
all of you people are satanic, and don't understand what it's like for real artist

If playing the harp were so special, why is there a factory here that just churns them out?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Lyon_Healy_Harp.jpg/220px-Lyon_Healy_Harp.jpg

a place of abuse and the occult

new board description

a place of abuse and the occult

She should charge more for her music?

because people like joanna newsome give it away freely.
she doesn't understand the value of music.

are we talking about the same Joanna Newsom who was in the news recently with some very strongly worded opinions on the evils of Spotify and the fact that musicians aren't being fairly compensated for their work?

I TOLD Y'ALL THIS WAS A TRAP

cmon let's let his or her schtick play out, sounds like we're going to get some cool chick tract stuff

reprise of marissa's slate of beefs with poor bela

(new video another PTA one btw)

I always misread that as PDA.

harp is at the lowest possible tier of skill along with chimes as instruments the wind can play

Once I played a friend's harp (she was a bit of a druid...wore a cloak) and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was tuned to a key. So you could pluck no wrong.

dunno why she even bothers going onstage, put a few of these next to the harp and it'll do the same basic job

https://writerscomplex.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/drinking-bird-simpsons-01.jpg

It's cool seeing where tracks clearly refer to each other or have imagery in common. Both Anecdotes and Pin-Light Bent talk about a light which is bent and lent. "Lightborne" relates to "lighter borne" in Divers. "Nightjar" comes up in both the first and last tracks. Probably more. She did some of that in Have One On Me as well, but this feels even more unified.

amateur hour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKjkxl6un3U

The fact that she doesn't even attempt to fart on the harp proves her lack of skill and creativity

I'm playing that video now, but how can I USE the "song"? I'm not finding it useful. It hasn't sent any emails to my clients, I can't eat it for sustenance, It doesn't appear to be something that will take me home from the office... I don't know, I'm still running tests.

I'm certainly glad to be at home
ILM thread continues on, alone

So good. I might prefer that harp version to the arrangement on the album.

Yeah, the there are plenty of times when I'd prefer the harp to be front and center

for years I loathed Joanna Newsom with the blister-inducing heat of a thousand spurned lovers; something about MEM struck me the wrong way upon my first contact with it somehow, and then Ys is absolutely not the album someone spoiling for the chance to make jokes about self-indulgent artists. but then I came around on her by way of Van Dyke Parks' presence (Song Cycle [!] -> Discover America [!!!!] -> "well I guess I better give that Ys thing another chance") just in time for the sprawling mindfuck of Have One On Me, which I absolutely loved, like loved so much it sent me back to MEM and yep I'd like to formally request a mulligan on that one.

anyway I totally love the new one; it's incredibly listenable, and her artistic flourishes are starting to get pretty goddamned impressive (the "trance-"/"sending" thing is the kind of thing that can contribute to a multiplier effect if it takes hold; it's a short soundbite which sells through her artistry without bashing you over the head with it, and we all saw how much people love using the internet to explain jokes to their friends on October 21st. I probably need to listen to it a few more times but I am really really looking forward to doing so; I haven't been so jazzed to listen to an album again so soon after listening to it since I woke up to the majesty of Siamese Dream and Olivia Tremor Control a few years ago.

It's cool seeing where tracks clearly refer to each other or have imagery in common. Both Anecdotes and Pin-Light Bent talk about a light which is bent and lent. "Lightborne" relates to "lighter borne" in Divers. "Nightjar" comes up in both the first and last tracks. Probably more. She did some of that in Have One On Me as well, but this feels even more unified.

― jmm, Wednesday, November 4, 2015 3:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

spent lots of time reading about nightjars (rufous, whip-poor-will, star-spotted, sickle-winged are all mentioned) and the various links between anecdotes, 101st lightborne and time as a symptom in the extremely hit-and-miss annotations on genius. there's definitely a sci-fi/time-travel/anthropomorphic concept album angle to divers

haha i was just doing the same

if it helps you feel better about how you're spending your life, well, let me tell you, the ones for have one on me have a way worse miss-to-hit ratio

Hopefully she comes to Ireland during festival season this year as I think these songs will work better live, and the European part of her current tour is only five dates. The album hasn't really clicked with me yet but I'm willing to give it time - there was so much to digest in some of the Have One On Me songs that they took a while too.

I like most of this, but Goose Eggs and 101st Lightborne feel to me like what I imagine people who hated the last two albums heard - they feel sort of meandering and overwrought which I've never had an issue with before, I can't really get into them at all. That makes this probably her weakest album, but the highs are as high as ever.

i wish she was more into less pretty noises, i wish she was less taken with weird melisma in her scansion, i still don't feel like i have a way into this. a while back j. was talking about have one on me being 'generous' with the listener and i feel like this isn't, so much. but still. it feels very 'crafted', i guess, i don't know, actually, some of the arrangements are kinda 'we had a goofy idea' come to think of it, i don't know, i don't have any valid opinions about this record

oh, hey.
i'm kind of sorry about that outburst upthread, for i certainly didn't mean to be so provocative, much less troll-some.
i do feel like what joanna newsom does is valuable, in a way, like how i feel bad music is valuable in its way (such as how it makes you appreciate the better music, even more). (i purposely listen to bad albums sometimes, for that very reason.)
anyway, i honestly felt bad posting that stuff upthread. i realize, now, that i should only stick to threads about artists i actually like on ilm. sorry about the marissa thing, too. i was just playin'!
sorry 'bout all that. i'm new. just trying to figure out my posting style, still. forgive me, please.
carry on.

I think it was your inability to describe it. You dismissed her music as "not useful" etc. but didn't really say what the hell that means. If you want to contribute, analyze and describe why you feel a certain way. The ignorant comments about harp playing is straight up trolling.

understood.
i definitely didn't put enough actual effort into the posts up thread, and i could have.
but, hey, anyway. um, attempting, in a futile effort, to talk people out of loving the music they love is definitely not my thing!
sorry 'bout that!
i'll stick to my own interests, now.

You can have any opinion you want just present it respectfully. No need to retreat to threads about things you exclusively like, but whatever works. Lots of ILX dedicated to talking about things we don't like.

eh. i hear that, but i'm obviously just bad at/i get too heated talking about things i don't like, so i'll refrain, from now on. actually, there are plenty of other people like this around here too. mr. ragget, for one.
in whatever case, of course her harp playing is undeniably gorgeous (but how couldn't it be, it's a harp!), and, as an actual MUSIC LOVER, her voice would surely grow on me if i gave it time.
hell, there are certainly things i care less for than ms. newsom.
anyway, not to get into my own music philosophy here or derail this thread much further (in essence, i feel that there's no such thing as bad music, sometimes things just need to sink in, if you really love music then you love all music, etc).
i could learn to like her, if i tried.
NOW, i gotta get outta here!

a successful invocation of Raggett requires all of the letters

That you, Calum?

I'm not sure what you guys are talking about but BOY was she great in London last night. Interestingly the arrangements are super stripped-back live - she has an amazing sideman who plays mandolin and tons of other instruments but is very subtle with all of it, and a great violin player, and a very unobtrusive drummer - it's restrained at the right times and they build lots of drama throughout. Good mix of songs from all the albums (opened and closed with Milk-Eyed Mender tracks; played a couple of the 10 min+ epics). It was beautiful.

i wish she was more into less pretty noises, i wish she was less taken with weird melisma in her scansion, i still don't feel like i have a way into this. a while back j. was talking about have one on me being 'generous' with the listener and i feel like this isn't, so much. but still. it feels very 'crafted', i guess,

yeah i liked the single when it first dropped but so far my couple attempts to listen to this have been very offputting - and i really loved HOOM. what i've heard so far makes this one sound very overdriven, somehow. maybe that's more her older sound, which i had never been that drawn to and hadn't even gone back to investigate once i heard HOOM.

I find some moments on her records really incredible, but fleeting. It's rare that I listen to one more than a handful of times. HOOM is the only one I never tried.

Lol @ less pretty noises. The last time I was listening to this new one I found myself wondering what it would be like to hear her growl.

lol i mean -- pretty sure there's points in her other records where she does!!

i still haven't listened all through this record -- it seems dense and impenetrable in the ways 'ys' did. it doesn't seem like it repeats the things that bugged me most about 'ys', so i suspect once i get over the surface resemblances i will find some things to like.

also it helped that HOOM was three cds and i had a cd player, and here i have a digital copy of eleven tracks and the sequencing is, well, idk if you can really sequence eleven songs and song-ish long-form things of varying lengths to flow very gracefully for 70+ minutes

I noticed on Facebook that a lot of people don't just hate her but are annoyed and suspicious that anyone actually likes her. Which makes me love her all the more.

So many artists want to be a love/hate deal so that they can feel important when in fact they leave most people indifferent. Newsom really does drive people to extremes.

i just did a duty listen to this and indifference is p much my exact feeling to her. she remains very melody-averse, doesn't she

melody-averse would seem a better descriptor for someone who sing-speaks their lyrics, not someone who elaborately phrases them like she does.

yeah, I thought that was odd, but kind of get it too. her melodies unfold over a longer span and tend to be overly elaborate in a way that I think could come off as non-melodic

this record rules. i can't imagine her being any more in command of her material. i think there are songs on hoom i'll always love more for their lyrical content but this one is more than a match musically.

melodies that aren't memorable, then. i always feel like her songs meander pretty aimlessly in terms of where the next note goes

lex, if it's any help, the shorter songs helped me get the rest of the album.

The last time I was listening to this new one I found myself wondering what it would be like to hear her growl.

Last time I saw her live she had to tune her harp, so set her fancy parlor guitarist off to do some speed metal riffs.

really love this. i know 'same old man' doesn't seem like much of a stand-out track, but i really appreciate the presence of a fairly plain traditional song amidst the intricate footnoted fancies of the rest of the album. it's arrangement is fairly simple and her vocal delivery marks her stylistic debt to karen dalton, almeda riddle, et al. it's much like 'three little babies' a la texas gladden on MEM in that way, but here 'same old man' also reflects themes and images found elsewhere on the album. clever way to anchor what otherwise feels like a metaphysical concept album.

i got the LP and the lyric sheets are gorgeous, one for each song, with the same sort of surreal magical landscapes as featured on the cover. i'm seeing her in december, can't wait. i kinda love her the most right now.

further to DJP's question about joanna's singing accent, i suspect the answer might be 'appalachian' imho

you going to the boston show by any chance?

i am indeed! with the husband and a couple friends. would love to see you there, if you're going as well!

sweet, yeah, i'll be there!

I think melody is one of her strengths. But then I just can't understand people liking her but not getting into YS. Talk about generous, I feel like she was just rolling one beautiful melody onto the next in the most riveting way, emotionally captivating and catchy.

further to DJP's question about joanna's singing accent, i suspect the answer might be 'appalachian' imho

― gwyneth anger (patron sailor), Wednesday, November 11, 2015 2:58 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's a really old WFMU interview where she talks about her accent being a result of coming from a very small country town and some mixture of speech impediments (she mentions a lisp) and corrective speech therapy.

Try Time, As a Symptom Lex. The ascending melody in the "joy" section is hair-raising.

melodies that aren't memorable, then. i always feel like her songs meander pretty aimlessly in terms of where the next note goes

― lex pretend, Wednesday, November 11, 2015 1:57 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i get this feeling a bit. more than ever on this record it seems like there are some gorgeously composed and arranged melodies which have some pretty interesting lyrics set to them, rather than some tunes and words that were thought of at the same time

though now she's more likely to stretch a syllable over a few notes, and less likely to crowd her lyrics with some extra syllables at risk of destroying her syntax -- which seems more confident, i think, in a couple ways, though less of a high-wire act

http://cdn2.pitchfork.com/news/62522/e9f3593c.jpg

I just put this record on at 45 rpm by mistake. I was kinda taken with it for a while. I guess that's exactly what the haterz hear.

Is this gonna get much love in the aoy poll? I'll vote it high. It's lovely. It's really stayed with me - I've listened to it every week since it's come out.

I vote it high, album knocked me out. Her 2nd best probably. Seems she didn't get any hype help from the usual sources this year though so I'm guessing just her loyal fans vote.

Yeah, second best after Ys I would say.

I loved it.

for some reason i didn't connect to this record at all. idk why

no synth stabs

of course

it's easy to imagine Newsom singing "Wood Beez" tbh

i feel really unmotivated about voting but if i do it will only be to try to place this record

for me the first 5/6 songs are amazing and then it really drops off into less interesting territory... pretty much exactly the first 2 sides on the vinyl version. anyone else find this?

it's definitely her worst album imo but it still might scrape into my 25. the title track is probably the only place where all the keyboards on it really work texturally I think

"Goose Eggs" is the only track where I'm still iffy about the keyboards. It sounds like a product of her goofing around with a bunch of instruments that she doesn't know very well. I like it okay, it has its own character, but the closing instrumental stretch especially is a little rickety. I love the keyboard touches on "Anecdotes" and "You Will Not Take My Heart Alive".

I am not a fan of her singing voice

She was great in Dublin last night - the new songs worked very well and the arrangements seemed a bit looser and less fussy than when I saw her on the HOOM tour. Robin Pecknold was the support and he came out and sang On A Good Day with her towards the end of the gig. Selection of older songs was spot on too - she ended with a great encore of Sawdust and Diamonds.

Yeah she was absolutely wonderful last night. The second half of the show in particular, leading up to the encore of Sawdust & Diamonds was intense.

I somehow missed she was playing Dublin

arrrrrgh

hitting those high notes at the end of this one, wow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uixz1JTdwpQ

Concert tonight! Wheeeeee!

I missed this new song. It's charming - could easily have fitted on Divers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGoqZ4zWSsg

It's no "Whip My Hair", but I'm still digging Willow Smith's jazzy version of "The Book of Right-On"

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPS4c31gltD/

Some solo performance dates announced, hopefully more will follow.

apparently played new material tonight at a fleet foxes gig *eyes emoji*

! hope a new album isn't too far away at last

It's about time!

I heard she is doing a flute and harp album with Lizzo.

https://www.reddit.com/r/JoannaNewsom/comments/11zbxw6/marie_at_the_mill/
https://www.reddit.com/r/JoannaNewsom/comments/11zczx5/the_air_again/
https://www.reddit.com/r/JoannaNewsom/comments/11zcu2f/no_wonder/
https://www.reddit.com/r/JoannaNewsom/comments/11zc8qa/bombs_are_whistling/
https://www.reddit.com/r/JoannaNewsom/comments/11zdw7z/little_hand_commentary/

5 new songs!

https://www.reddit.com/r/JoannaNewsom/comments/11zd18x/good_intentions_paving_company_with_robin/

and good intentions paving co. with fleet foxes

well this is an absolute and unexpected delight, it all sounds fantastic, although I hope she plays more harp on the supposed forthcoming album.

all sound like you would expect new joanna newsom songs to sound. "the air again" is a highlight

waiting until i have time to give a close listen before i dive into these new pieces, but just seeing her pop up on the newsfeed has me down the youtube rabbit hole with joanna, and stumbled on this show from the initial ys street band tour that has absolutely immaculate sound. wow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEIH7FUwbfE

I saw her solo a month before that show, at Bennington College. It was a peak live music experience: was only familiar with the Milk-Eyed Mender material to that point, and was totally unprepared for the grandeur of the Ys tracks. As I remember it, the show was in kind of a modest multipurpose room, with a few hundred people sitting on the floor in front of a stage that was a foot or two elevated from us.

Yeah, that is an amazing recording, I've listened to it many times. I don't think she's ever been better than in that period.

hoo boy i sure would like jn to do like... the rest of her music with robin pecknold involvement. that's a collaboration that needs to endure.

ugh no i know i am the minority but i liked her as a noisy loner not as a mannered decadent

ya don't know if i can agree with that statement but she's definitely too iconoclastic for that to become her primary aesthetic

The Bottletree gig is an awesome recording indeed, a classic in itself. I think I still have a CD-R with it burned somewhere lol.

Worth noting that fairly recently a guy on YouTube cleaned it up (getting rid of the glitches in "Emily" and "Monkey & Bear"). He also uploaded high-quality recordings of shows from every one of her tours, all with links to MP3 320 kbps downloads on Google Drive as well. Well worth checking out!

Here they are:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMhu9WD0R5W2UtpGX_GaLML8HyWwgg0_f

This tour was the first time I saw her perform, exact same set, and still my favorite version of her band. As soon as she started "Bridges and Balloons" it was clear that she had been working on her singing, and had added much more breath, control, and subtlety than on the original recording.