[milky moon]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/oc ... icandopera

Joanna Newsom, Ys
5 out of 5
Stephanie Merritt
The Observer, Sunday 15 October 2006

No one is like the gothic harpist, insists Stephanie Merritt. Or at least no one from the past few hundred years

The first reaction on hearing 24-year-old Joanna Newsom's second album, Ys, is simply to be stunned. Stunned at the scope and breadth and imagination of it, and stunned, too, that there are still artists with the courage and vision to produce music as startlingly original and true as this.

Newsom is, inevitably, an acquired taste, but subsequent plays reveal hidden layers of texture and colour, for what she has created is a vast musical painting - perhaps a better analogy would be a medieval tapestry, rich with symbolic detail and depicting a vast landscape of the imagination stretching into the distance through arched windows.

There is a distinctly medieval flavour to her lyrics - each of the five songs here is a lengthy narrative poem - reinforced by the design of the inlay and the Holbein-esque painting of Newsom. But it is the fantasy gothic as reimagined by Kate Bush or 19th-century poet Christina Rossetti, and occasionally runs the same risks of straying the wrong side of whimsy - among her brilliant and difficult imagery there is perhaps a little too much 'fain' and 'thee'. Yet these are strange and beautiful musical fables that elude easy interpretation, particularly 'Emily', dedicated to her sister (who provides vocal harmonies), and 'Monkey and Bear', a parable (possibly) about emancipation.

Since her acclaimed debut album The Milk-Eyed Mender (which sounds positively conventional in contrast to Ys), Newsom has established herself as an entirely distinctive artist, set apart by her exceptional voice, which can't help recall Kate Bush and Bjork in its surprising twists and lurches, and her unusual, staccato harp-playing, derived from African harpists rather than the lush, slightly twee image the instrument tends to conjure. The songs on Ys are built around these elements, foregrounding the harp but fleshing it out with orchestral arrangements by composer and famed Brian Wilson collaborator Van Dyke Parks (not the only notable name here - the album was mixed by Jim O'Rourke and recorded by Steve Albini).

You could spend a lot of time debating the influences here - there are hints of Patti Smith and minimalist composer Terry Riley, a neighbour of Newsom's as she grew up and an acknowledged influence - but really this album is unlike anything else you will hear at present. Ys is an exceptional piece of art in the broadest sense - give it the chance to grow on you.

Recommended: 'Emily'; 'Monkey and Bear'