Ys
by Joanna Newsom

From buzzdainer TOP 100 COMMENTER 11/03/2016 16:18 | #177924 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I was living in Reno in November of 2006 when Ys was released, and I immediately recognized, amid the dense allegory and arcane literary references embedded in Joanna Newsom's lyrics, music that is grounded in the Sierra Nevada and Yuba River Valley landscapes in which Newsom was born and raised. Take, for instance, the opening lines to the album's centerpiece, "Emily": "The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow / Set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport over the pharaoh / A little while later the Pharisees dragged comb through the meadow / Do you remember what they called up to you and me, in our window?" Somehow, in these lyrics, Newsom manages to weave together personal history, geographical and ecological specificity, and Biblical allusions that give the whole experience an ancient, mythical feel. This is creative, ambitious, brilliant stuff--the threads drawn together by an artist still in the early stages of her career. I cannot wait to see what she does in the years and decades to come.

From DriftingOrpheus 06/20/2020 19:39 | #254001 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

The music zeitgeist has seen its fair share of luminous storytellers but few vividly beseech their audience to partake in their free-flowing whimsy like balladeer-extraordinaire Joanna Newsom. Yet, when discussions of this generation's most profound creators, her name seems to reside on the periphery. This is an unspeakable injustice. To call her dexterous would be an understatement, having mastered the piano, harpsichord and the seldom-conquered pedal harp. These instrumental exploits have produced work that's drawn comparisons to the Romantic era, coupled with the singer's unmistakable, naturalistic vocals. Never has Newsom's music sounded more idyllic and enchanting than on 2006's Ys. Named after the mythical French city engulfed by the sea, the album is comprised of five long-form treatises which metaphorically recount four distinct experiences undergone by the harpist in the span of a year. The autobiographical nature of the subject matter enriches the poetry of the record and renders every lyric endlessly interpretable. Newsom's scholarly, fairy-tale epic is equal parts whimsical and irreplicable.

The fantasy-tinged odyssey materializes with opening number, Emily. The song is inspired by Newsom's astrophysicist sister and the revered moments shared between them. As you'd imagine, Joanna's harp is the centerpiece of the sprawling, musing procession. The might of the string section smolders behind her handiwork creating a sensation of perpetual motion that never allows the 12 minute opener to stall but rather to wander with concentrated beauty. Newsom's ability to rhapsodize approaches mythic plateaus on the track as she requests, "Let us go though we know it's a hopeless endeavor; the ties that bind, they are barbed and spined and hold us close forever; though there is nothing would help me come to grips with a sky that is gaping and yawning; there is a song I woke with on my lips as you sailed your great ship towards the morning." It's just one stone that resides within the collection of embarrassing riches of this era's greatest lyricist. Second track, Monkey & Bear, expands the sonic repertoire slightly but the songstress' harp still chaperones. The song flaunts calculated orchestral flutters buoying Newsom's unabridged poetic amendments. The thematic roots of the sweeping nine minute piece are entrenched in the legend of Ursa Major, a constellation in the frame of a bear. Potentially more personally akin to Newsom's experience, the song echoes sentiment of the damning effects staying steadfast in romantic kinship at the cost of surrendering personal independence. "Until we reach the open country, a-steeped in milk and honey; will you keep your fancy clothes on, for me; can you bear a little longer to wear that leash," she details. Album epergne, Sawdust and Diamonds, bears the sweetest of fruits. The track is bolstered by Newsom's sublime harp arpeggio that acts as the engine for the song's excellence. It also ranks as one of the finest lyrical labyrinths of her career. It communicates a moment of adversity between two lovers and ponders if said love will persevere or subside. "And in a moment of almost-unbearable vision, doubled over with the hunger of lions; hold me close, cooed the dove, who was stuffed, now, with sawdust and diamonds," Newsom sings with fragility. It's a harrowing excursion that remains one of the artist's most ethereal yet lucid declarations. Its tendency to induce tears is formidable.

Only Skin, is a serpentine account of the events that befell Joanna during the year that inspired the album and the interrelation between those fragments. The track is Ys' most sonically voluptuous as it features backing vocals from Bill Callahan and burly cello contributions. The tuneful escalation does not supersede Newsom's poetry, however. She protests, "But always up the mountainside you’re clambering, groping blindly, hungry for anything; picking through your pocket linings, well, what is this; scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus," as she alludes to a partner's polygamous lust. Only Skin transmutes multiple times throughout its 17 minute runtime, punctuating Newsom's ability as a virtuoso spinner of feminine, fantasy sagas. The album comes to rest with Cosmia, where Joanna calls upon moths to lead her to the warming light of solace. Her vocal work is her mightiest here, as she calls for her "little darling" and how she misses a particular "precious heart". Additionally, the heavenly falsettos she unleashes joyously contrast backing accordion hums. She asks, "Can you hear me; Will you listen; don't come near me; don't go missing, and in the lissome light of evening, help me, Cosmia; I'm grieving."

It's important to step back slightly and gaze at the mountainous mosaic that Newsom has architected. It's tremendously difficult to synthesize one's intimate thoughts into such a boundless tapestry of wordplay and metaphor. On Ys, Joanna Newsom seems to operatively channel her convictions while remaining blissfully, beautifully unfazed by the rigors that would derail mortal songwriters. This is not Newsom's lyrical coming out party as she was profoundly bardic on 2004's The Milk-Eyed Mender, but the poeticism has ballooned into a hulking behemoth on Ys, all the while bending one of the world's most challenging instruments to her will. It's clearly difficult to be humble when describing the young woman's ever-blooming genius. I'll just leave the humility to her as it seems to come her naturally as all things inherently do. With a quartet of albums under her belt, she's likely to have more future triumphs and adornments affixed to her name. Still, she'd be hard-pressed to outdo her chamber folk paragon. It's a carefully constructed journey of enlightening pain and a promise of subsequent emotional provision. It is destined to harbor the necessary magic native to the fantasy settings that which galvanized its creation. Ys is simply a fossilized memento of a forgotten and forlorn age, washed up on a forbidden shore as considerate waves propel it lovingly toward you.

"From the top of the flight,
Of the wide, white stairs,
Through the rest of my life,
Do you wait for me there?"

-Sawdust and Diamonds

Standout Tracks:

1. Sawdust and Diamonds
2. Emily
3. Monkey & Bear

94.5 (Edited)

Birds chirp in the trees outside my room, particularly in the morning. One day I woke up, opened the window, and played Ys while hearing the birds in the background. It brought the record to new levels of awesome.

If you've never imagined a vast fantasy universe of your own, or hay if you've never been sad or longing a single time in your life, then this album will do nothing for you except make you realize what you've been missing. It's the human experience seen through her own expansive, sometimes frighting and yet always beautiful alternate world, where the difference between the one we live in now is really only in her mirthful, vivid details. A must, even if it'll break your heart

From AleJohnMari 04/18/2013 19:55 | #73790 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I've tried it, listened to it over and over again, but I guess i don't have the brains to grasp this.