Joanna Newsom: Ys

Label: Drag City

This might just be the most ambitious record I’ve heard all year. I could go on in great detail about the metaphorically loaded packaging and the heavily referential lyrical excursions on Joanna Newsom’s brilliant sophmore effort, Ys, but like all good fairy tales, that’s best left to your imagination. Partially recorded by Steve Albini, mixed by Jim O’Rourke and arranged by the legendary Van Dyke Parks, Ys has an almost drifting quality that goes from sparse and solemn to ecstatic and opulent several times within each of its extended pieces (and these are extended pieces – 5 tracks totalling 55 minutes). The extreme dynamics of the arrangements work well to create a somewhat dramatic and warm underpinning for her sing-song narratives, at times recalling Parks’s debut LP, Song Cycle. Though the album certainly rings true to the aesthetic that Newsom introduced on her debut, with the harp and voice still existing as the focal point, the arrangements create a new sense of depth that reiterates and pushes her cyclical harp style to new heights. And while her voice has always had a sense of excitability, here she sings with a new sense of ease and confidence that carries these lengthy pieces continuously forward. A truly inspired collection of songs that becomes richer with each listen. (Koen)