Features | Concerts
Joanna Newsom
By David Greenwald | 4 December 2006
Joanna Newsom isn’t a multifaceted artist: she’s a Rubik’s Cube, enigmatic and enveloping. Her new album, Ys, is the kind of stab at greatness usually reserved for Roman would-be emperors. It’s brutal and no-holds-barred in both its beauty and breadth, just under an hour of heavily ambitious wordplay, song craft and performance that would have crushed a lesser artist. Of course, that doesn’t make it easy to listen to. Even the most graceful of arrangements (which Van Dyke Parks provides in spades) can’t make the Homeric songs seem any shorter, but for most, it’s Newsom’s voice that remains the sticking point.
There’s little else to criticize. The harp-playing -- immaculate and classically-trained -- that forms the base of her sound is unimpeachable, and the complexity and poetry of her lyrics places her comfortably alongside writerly Drag City labelmates such as Will Oldham and the Silver Jews’ D.C. Berman, if not beyond them entirely. But just as Newsom’s songwriting has stretched and evolved, the warbling girl-child who once chirped and cheeped her way through “Bridges and Balloons” has grown into an expressive woman.
It’s that voice that I’ve come to the El Rey to hear tonight, unmediated by recordings and Steve Albini’s microphones. On Ys, she displays a range undreamt of upon the release of The Milk-Eyed Mender (2004): from moment to moment, Newsom is unpredictable, squawking an expected squawk before uttering silver-voiced phrases draped in silk. In “Only Skin,” for example, the beauty of her call-and-response falsetto upstages both herself and Bill Callahan (the baritone behind Smog, no slouch vocally himself). Still, just as they reward, Newsom’s antics can be trying and even annoying. Waiting outside in the winter chill ["… in California …" -- Clayton], I find myself hoping that tonight she’ll be more blossoming swan than ugly duckling.
While watching the opening act -- Noah Georgeson, who has a George Harrison haircut, a baritone voice and happened to produce The Milk-Eyed Mender -- I realize that this might be the earliest I’ve ever seen a Los Angeles crowd fill a venue, at least since waiting two hours in line to get a good spot for one of Elliott Smith’s final shows in 2003. And that was a two-night run. The Beverly Hills High sweater set is here, but so are a few gray-haired adults. Maybe Newsom’s music isn’t as exclusionary and private as critics would have us believe.
Appearing before her was one Bill Callahan -- still under the Smog moniker, at least for a few more performances -- and his brand of solitary folk was stark and coldly strummed. He was clean-shaven and well-coiffed, wearing a button-down shirt with rolled-up sleeves. That he is in a relationship with Newsom is enigmatic; the only thing that’s clear is it seems to be a case of opposites attracting. He played several songs from his as-yet-untitled upcoming album, including a warm, major key piece and one about “our anniversary” which was romantic despite the half-hearted gloom of a minor chord. Perhaps she’s thawing him out.
Newsom entered smiling to thunderous applause. She wore a red dress and her blonde hair fell to the small of her back, as appealing visually as her music is sonically. There was at least one “Marry me, Joanna!” catcall, but for the most part the crowd (even the loudmouths at the bar) kept quiet, hanging intently on every word of her almost two-hour performance. She opened with “Bridges and Balloons” and “Book of Right-On”; on her old songs, she still sounded childlike in tone if not in enunciation. Was it all Albini after all? The answer was no, as a complete performance of Ys would reveal. Her five-member band joined her on stage and they launched into “Emily”; playing in album order is a strict concert no-no unless you’re the Who doing Tommy. But Ys is no ordinary record. It must be swallowed whole.
The performance was note-perfect, and even better than that, the new, stringless arrangements suited the songs perfectly. They’re earthier and focus more attention on Newsom, becoming true accompaniment rather than Parks’ attention-grabbing orchestra. And the drums on the “meteorite” bit? Incredible. But it was that focus, the spotlight on Newsom’s artistry, which was the revelation of the concert. In “Emily,” her voice was breathy and gorgeous; in “Monkey & Bear,” she was a half-dozen characters (even if the song is just a narrator and a monkey), rough and sweet and cartoon-y over the song’s nine-plus minutes. It’s not that Ys is so difficult or even too long, as I’d thought it was after my initial honeymoon -- it’s just that it’s an album that requires the listener’s full attention, which is why seeing it performed in its entirety was so riveting, and so necessary.
The audience demanded an encore, and they got one. Newsom began with “Sadie,” another song from The Milk-Eyed Mender. With her newly capable vocals, the song took on fresh subtleties, becoming as impressive in its six minutes as the twice-as-long pieces she’d just completed. I walked out into the frigid air with a smile on my face and her voice in my ears.
There’s little else to criticize. The harp-playing -- immaculate and classically-trained -- that forms the base of her sound is unimpeachable, and the complexity and poetry of her lyrics places her comfortably alongside writerly Drag City labelmates such as Will Oldham and the Silver Jews’ D.C. Berman, if not beyond them entirely. But just as Newsom’s songwriting has stretched and evolved, the warbling girl-child who once chirped and cheeped her way through “Bridges and Balloons” has grown into an expressive woman.
It’s that voice that I’ve come to the El Rey to hear tonight, unmediated by recordings and Steve Albini’s microphones. On Ys, she displays a range undreamt of upon the release of The Milk-Eyed Mender (2004): from moment to moment, Newsom is unpredictable, squawking an expected squawk before uttering silver-voiced phrases draped in silk. In “Only Skin,” for example, the beauty of her call-and-response falsetto upstages both herself and Bill Callahan (the baritone behind Smog, no slouch vocally himself). Still, just as they reward, Newsom’s antics can be trying and even annoying. Waiting outside in the winter chill ["… in California …" -- Clayton], I find myself hoping that tonight she’ll be more blossoming swan than ugly duckling.
While watching the opening act -- Noah Georgeson, who has a George Harrison haircut, a baritone voice and happened to produce The Milk-Eyed Mender -- I realize that this might be the earliest I’ve ever seen a Los Angeles crowd fill a venue, at least since waiting two hours in line to get a good spot for one of Elliott Smith’s final shows in 2003. And that was a two-night run. The Beverly Hills High sweater set is here, but so are a few gray-haired adults. Maybe Newsom’s music isn’t as exclusionary and private as critics would have us believe.
Appearing before her was one Bill Callahan -- still under the Smog moniker, at least for a few more performances -- and his brand of solitary folk was stark and coldly strummed. He was clean-shaven and well-coiffed, wearing a button-down shirt with rolled-up sleeves. That he is in a relationship with Newsom is enigmatic; the only thing that’s clear is it seems to be a case of opposites attracting. He played several songs from his as-yet-untitled upcoming album, including a warm, major key piece and one about “our anniversary” which was romantic despite the half-hearted gloom of a minor chord. Perhaps she’s thawing him out.
Newsom entered smiling to thunderous applause. She wore a red dress and her blonde hair fell to the small of her back, as appealing visually as her music is sonically. There was at least one “Marry me, Joanna!” catcall, but for the most part the crowd (even the loudmouths at the bar) kept quiet, hanging intently on every word of her almost two-hour performance. She opened with “Bridges and Balloons” and “Book of Right-On”; on her old songs, she still sounded childlike in tone if not in enunciation. Was it all Albini after all? The answer was no, as a complete performance of Ys would reveal. Her five-member band joined her on stage and they launched into “Emily”; playing in album order is a strict concert no-no unless you’re the Who doing Tommy. But Ys is no ordinary record. It must be swallowed whole.
The performance was note-perfect, and even better than that, the new, stringless arrangements suited the songs perfectly. They’re earthier and focus more attention on Newsom, becoming true accompaniment rather than Parks’ attention-grabbing orchestra. And the drums on the “meteorite” bit? Incredible. But it was that focus, the spotlight on Newsom’s artistry, which was the revelation of the concert. In “Emily,” her voice was breathy and gorgeous; in “Monkey & Bear,” she was a half-dozen characters (even if the song is just a narrator and a monkey), rough and sweet and cartoon-y over the song’s nine-plus minutes. It’s not that Ys is so difficult or even too long, as I’d thought it was after my initial honeymoon -- it’s just that it’s an album that requires the listener’s full attention, which is why seeing it performed in its entirety was so riveting, and so necessary.
The audience demanded an encore, and they got one. Newsom began with “Sadie,” another song from The Milk-Eyed Mender. With her newly capable vocals, the song took on fresh subtleties, becoming as impressive in its six minutes as the twice-as-long pieces she’d just completed. I walked out into the frigid air with a smile on my face and her voice in my ears.