Joanna Newsom’s Astral Weeks
Appreciating music shares many similarities with fine dining. Sometimes washing the palate allows a gourmand to further appreciate the subtleties of the course. The technique applies for music connoisseurs as well.
Listening to the organic richness of Joanna Newsom’s new album, Ys, is a delightful change of pace from all the electronic textures that have been featured previously on this site. With just a harp and a truly beautiful but unimposing orchestra arrangement as a backdrop, Joanna paints vivid stories of folklore metaphors. The packaging of her album is in the image of a book straight out of a Never Ending Story. Along with the gilded pages, each song is presented in the forms of chapters and the lyrics are gramatically correct in punctiation to further present the album in literary form.
Joanna gives each song enough space to allow her lyrics to dance and flourish into fully develop into stories. Yet these long songs never get boring because as the well crafted lyrics move along in the story, the orchestra arrangement responds accordingly with intricate nuances and counterpoints to the mood of each line. Never have I heard any music so responsive to its lyrics and so much freedom in the delivery of lyrics since Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks which has long considered one of the best albums ever made. Could Joanna Newsom’s Ys give Van Morrison a run for his money as this generation’s Astral Weeks? Time will tell but it doesn’t hurt that she was recorded by Steve Albini (ahem In Utero, Pixies).
Opening song of Joanna Newsom’s Ys (2006)
Emily - Joanna Newsom (mp3)
Opening song of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks (1968)
Astral Weeks - Van Morrison (mp3)