Joanna Newsom

For the first 20 seconds of Ys anyone who thought about the follow-up to The Milk-Eyed Mender probably went “okay cool more minimal folk songs.” Suddenly: pizzicato, something that sounds like plucked piano strings, lush violins, backing vocals. Joanna Newsom is not here to be the coquettish high-pitched songstress, and never was, really. No more playing around. Van Dyke Parks is here, his arrangements soaring and bouncing. Jim O’Rourke is here, his production as dry and warm as burnt wood in the sun. And front and center is Newsom, singing songs of and for meteorites, bears, sawdust, and everything else that keeps the world mysterious. “When I cut your hair/and leave the birds all of the trimmings/I am the happiest woman of all women.” Dropped in the middle of 16-minute centerpiece “Only Skin” it could be anyone else’s refrain to hang a song on. In the hands of Joanna Newsom, it is simply a stitch in a tapestry that goes on for miles and miles.

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