Track Listing

1. Emily
2. Monkey And Bear
3. Sawdust And Diamonds
4. Only Skin
5. Cosmia

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1969 in Music
• Released on: 2006-11-06
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
If the debut album from Joanna Newsom, 2004's The Milk-Eyed Mender, suggested there was no-one in music quite like this elfin San Franciscan harpist, its follow-up Ys sees that gulf of difference become a universe of possibilities. Recorded by veteran engineer Steve Albini, with strings from Brian Wilson collaborator Van Dyke Parks and vocal contributions from Newsom's current beau, Bill Callahan of alternative country miserabilists Smog, Ys is an altogether bigger, broader, more fantastical and more ambitious offering than its predecessor.

Only five tracks long, songs unfurl into grandiose narratives embossed with trumpet, violins, oboe, and French horn. But what's truly impressive is Newsom's extraordinary sense of command. On "Emily", cutesy observations of birds taking flight ("the meadowlark and the chim-cho-ree") blossom out into tales of falling meteorites, muddy-mouthed baboons and nautical adventures. Meanwhile, on the extraordinary "Only Skin" (which approaches 20 minutes in length) Newsom's voice and plucked harp flourish in strange, complimentary patterns, her voice at times born up on dramatic trumpets and cooing oboes, or for one passage, shadowed by Callahan's cobwebbed croak. It is testing in length, difficult to dip into, and not for those allergic to flights of fancy -- but Ys is a magnificent achievement, one you suspect no one else on this planet could mimic, let alone challenge. -- Louis Pattison

Album Description
* Co-Produced by Van Dyke Parks (Beach Boys Etc), Harp and vocals recorded by Steve Albini Mixed by Jim O'Rourke, Mastered by Nick Webb At Abbey Road Studios, London * Package is a CD Jewel case with elaborate 32 pg designed sleeve/booklet enclosed. Lyrics are included. * `Ys' was recorded with a 30+ strong Orchestra.

From the Artist
Joanna Newsom explains it like this:

All the songs are intended to be playable with or without accompaniment, and I've already played them solo in a live context quite a bit.

Vocals and harp parts were recorded first, with Steve Albini. The main reason for starting this way was that Van Dyke wanted to base his arrangements on a final version of the songs, not "scratch" versions, given the fact that I tend to improvise and vary each performance slightly. Van Dyke felt that every nuance of the performance would inform his arrangements. A happy by-product of this necessary order of events was that the vocals and harp were recorded in a climate of quietness, ease, and spontaneity, allowing for the retention of a sense of intimacy and immediacy. The goal I had in mind was for the harp and vocals to feel like they were developing unawares of the presence of the orchestra, unburdened by any of the self-consciousness/formality/austerity/stiltedness this might provoke... as if the orchestra is hanging in a hallucinatory shimmer around the more substantial harp and voice. Van Dyke was then given the vocal and harp tracks, along with a pile of notes from me (mostly non-technical, i.e. describing moods, colours, images, scenes and concepts I wanted to project or produce in each song, line-by-line, bar-by-bar). In the months that followed, he'd send me various drafts of the arrangements, and I'd send him back notes about what worked for me and what didn't. Everything he sent, from day one, was amazing and lovely; the struggle, in editing and refining the drafts, mostly centred on trying to come up with arrangements that reflected Van Dyke's singular compositional voice and ideas, but still resonated completely with me and felt seamlessly bound to my own music. This took many drafts!

Eventually I went to LA to work directly with him in his studio, combing though the arrangements bar-by-bar, till both of us felt happy with the result, and both felt a sense of ownership and closeness to it.

All the arrangement work took approximately eight months.

The orchestral recording sessions took place in the spring of 2006, over three days, with an additional day at the end for vocal harmonies, percussion and Van Dyke's accordion. Van Dyke conducted the orchestra. He is a great conductor.

Mixing was done in NYC by Jim O'Rourke. I'm a huge admirer of all his work and I couldn't think of anybody else who matches his combination of symphonic/ classical literacy (in both arrangement and engineering terms) with experimentalism and analogue-fluency. He made the record sound the way I wanted it to sound. He edited quite a bit, and tweaked and carved it, allowing the songs to be at the centre of the record, above and beyond all the instrumental influences.

Just about every track on the whole album is in constant flux, and Jim was able to achieve the hallucinatory orchestral wash-effect I wanted, with parts rising up and dropping in and out almost weightlessly, disappearing without much notice and reappearing as if they'd been there the whole time.

...and that's just about how it happened!

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Customer Reviews

Classic Freakfolk
Joanna Newsom's latest is classic. She 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 sprawling, intricate songs that clock in at about ten minutes average, and enhancing her folky sound with... an orchestra. It's a bit like listening to an acid-tripping fairy tell you her life story.

It opens with "Emily," a gentle little ballad that works itself up in a flow of violins. "The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow/Set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport over the pharaoh," Newsom warbles. There's a bittersweet note to the hints of loss, but Newsom also fills it with childish wonderment at the world.

Then it's time for interspecies romance in the rippling, meandering story-song "Monkey and Bear," before trickling into "Sawdust and Diamonds." Unlike the shining density of the other songs, this one is stripped down -- it's just a shimmering harp melody, and Newsom crooning softly over it.

Newsom wraps things up nicely in the final two songs. "Only Skin" is a gently expanding ballad that sounds like a medieval song, with an experimental twist. And finally there is "Cosmia," a colourful mishmash of harp, squealing violins, and Bjorkian vocals. "Dry rose petals, red round circles/Frame your eyes, and stain your knuckles..."

Supposedly "Ys" is a loose concept album, about the legendary sunken island -- a bit difference from her Narnian references in her first album. But taken only for itself, "Ys" is a magical experience, as Newsom spins song-stories about pastoral grandeur and magical nature.

Newsom also expands her music in this. Instead of mostly harp, she relies on harp AND strings this time around, and the strings seem to grow as unpredictable and quirky as her harp playing. Her music is completely impossible to predict -- it will trip merrily along, stop, and explode in a swirl of strings, before slipping into a staccato melody. It's enchanting.

It matches her song lyrics, which sound like a hippie Wallace Stevens. Even the most mundane thing can become magical and mysterious here ("Water wet her limbs, fire warms her hair"), and her songs are full of farms, meteroids, rose petals, doves and "milkymoons."

The thing that is hardest to get used to is her voice -- Newsom doesn't have a typical pop voice. She doesn't have a typical folk voice either. Instead, she sounds a bit like a folky Bjork, when she doesn't sound like a stoned pixie at the Renaissance Faire -- she warbles, trills, and occasionally crackles.

"Ys" is as magical as the legends and images that inspire it, and Joanna Newsom has successfully taken her music to the next level. Exquisite.

Astonishing
As an ex-punk with a cd collection full of very loud guitars, I am not the most suitable candidate for a 'folk' harpist singing 15 minute tracks. And then this comes along, and by the time I'm halfway through the first track ('Emily')I'm crying - full-on tears - and I've no idea where they are coming from. I suppose it's the voice, it's the beauty of the music, and it's the strange mixture of wide-eyed innocence and profound knowingness of the lyrics. A love song to her sister, Emily touches on memory, dreams, and simply what it is to be human in a big, wide, unknowable universe. Together it produces such a potent brew that I am moved to the core. And here I am 18 months later, still re-visiting and re-visiting it, and still will tears welling every time I listen. It is a strange, sad yet uplifting, and magical experience. Just the word "joy", sung so that it just sits on its own, can reach well beyond any defences:
"We could stand for a century -
Starin'
With our heads cocked
In the broad daylight at this thing
Joy
Landlocked
In bodies that don't keep
Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being".

Hey Nonny No
You think you have heard it all in music and then an album like `Ys' comes along. A singer/songwriter using a harp as the lead instrument is unusual enough, but Joanna Newsom's vocals are also truly unique - commanding an expressive range of sound and emotion rather like Bjork although not as pure.

The songs themselves are built around Newsom's remarkably evocative lyrical vision. No verse/chorus/verse singalongs here, rather great rambling poetic epics laden with imagery which is fantastic in the fairy-tale sense.

The sparse sound of her harp and vocals is very effectively bolstered with orchestral flourishes from a wide variety of instruments as well as some restrained backing vocals. After a few listens, the strength and melody of the compositions really start to shine through. The harp's sound and the lyrics give the whole record an almost Mediaeval or Renaissance feel, heightened further by the wonderful cover potrait of the artist in that style and the lavish gold-edged lyric booklet that accompanies the CD.

On the downside I suppose `Ys' could be criticised for a lack of variety and Newsom's vocals will certainly not be to everyone's taste, but I really like and recommend this fine record, whose unique style feels so refreshing.