Joanna Newsom

[FrantzM]

Hi

I got this CD recently as a gift and didn't care t listen to it for a while. I was warned ... and thankfully. She is extremely unusual but the kind of Artist who has a message and it's music: Great music. She composes and play to a high level an unusual instruments for singers (or anyone really) the Harp. She also plays as if to add the unusual-ness the harpsichord (although she plays the piano too) .
The warning is important: her voice is extremely unusual and you need to go past it. Once you do that and get to her message her voice is the vehicle to her poetry and songwriting both are of caliber.. As for the voice you can't really separate it from her music.. It is however to repeat veryunusual ...

The album is: The Milk-eyed Mender. A very, very, very good album. Soothing beautiful music and poetry. The sound is simple and not beautified, there isn't the usual overly processed, over-engineered, over-produced pop fare. it is simple and serves the music. Often, just an electric piano, a Wurlitzer piano, an harpsichord and her harp . There are two songs with guitar accompaniments.. As simple as you can get ... It is difficult to catalog her . Not exactly folk... Definitely not "new-age" .. not Celtic ... her music is definitely American folklore but not exactly "Folk". I read there are elements of Appalachian music in hers. Avant-Guarde if that means defying genre while pushing envelopes of known genres . There is bluegrass in there too, unmistakable but still not a bluegrass artist.

The recording is a woofer workout and may bottom more than its share of amplifiers and woofers if they are not stout, the bass is part of the music , carries a meaning .. can be one sustained note for several seconds as in the end of "The Book of Righ On" . As for her voice (Again you have to be forewarned ) don't go changing your settings to make of hers what it doesn't possess. She describes her own voice as "untrainable" but strangely she can sing .well.. It won't become anything it is not and the recording portrays that .. No Autotunes here
All this to tell you this is a must have album in anyone musical collection. You may find the album growing on you after the first 3 mins of ... disbelief Then the lyrics and the beauty of the composition take over. And you wouldn't want anyone else to sing those lyrics or to play the music because it simply works and well. Music is also exploration and this album confirms this in a resounding way. The album is IMO that good. The Lyrics are a mixture of angst and often of candor and naivete. Not in the sense of a person shying from the truth but rather of a grown person who has embraced purposefully and consciously a view of life. Her music carries this message and her voice too, strangely enough ...
Highly recommended



Can find it at Amazon.com Click HERE

 

[jazdoc]

Frantz -- this is my favorite Joanna Newsom LP (3 discs) and is also very well recorded.

 

[daytona600]

playing Ms newsom from the Later show , on the train on my new A&K AK100 portable

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGViUabMt14

next track was this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWCu_Kpk2OY

 

[Shaffer]

I have a copy of Have One On me, as well. The 3LP version. In all truth, I have a difficult time sitting through it. The songs are long and Renaissance-like, in a sense that there are no choruses. They just keep winding themselves out. It's an interesting way to pen a tune, especially when there's a plan to span six sides. On a positive note, the arrangements can be interesting.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I'll be honest here......it's going to require several listens before I can even come close to tolerating the voice. I may not ever get there, which would be a shame as I do like the music.