I miss, I miss, I miss your precious heart
-
Artist:
Wow, first post in awhile. Sorry y'all. Hard to keep up with school and everything. Been doing some more recording, some movie scoring, philosophizing, all that. Still doing radio; now I'm doing a prog rock show! Same time though, 2-4 PM PST on kzsc.orgIt's called "The Epic Battles of Past and Future." I'm proud of the title. Listen to it, I'm playing some seriously good shit!My inaugural post back is about an album that's not even out yet, but plenty of people have slowly been discovering and raving about: Joanna Newsom's "Ys."I didn't like her first album, "The Milk Eyed Mender" at all. Joanna has a voice like a Furby; inconceivably annoying. I could appreciate her lyrics, but the songs were disjointed and not that interesting, and nothing stuck for me. So I certainly haven't been sitting around in anticipation of a new release from her.Then, I found out some things about the new record;1. Recorded by Steve Albini, one of the greatest producers of all time. He's worked with heaviess like Nirvana and Mike Patton, and he's known for his pristine productions.2. Produced by Jim O'Rourke, indie Zelig and man-about-town, who's played around with Wilco and Sonic Youth among others.3. Orchestrated by Van Dyke Parks, cult artist and one of the major forces behind Brian Wilson's SMILE project.4. 5 tracks. The shortest is about 7 minutes, the longest closer to 17.5. (the big one) She sounds NORMAL! I don't know what she did, but she turned down the vocal hysterics and put herself back in the mix a little, and now sounds kind of like a heliated and unaccented Bjork.Basically, it seems like Joanna pulled out all the stops; not only hiring the absolute best in the business to make the album with her, but expanding her sound as far as it will go. It's insanely ambitious...but it sounds effortless. Completely effortless. The phrase that comes to mind is "stream-of-consciousness." The melody flows so naturally you feel like she's improvising all the way through, but further listens reveal intensely detailed melodic composition, breezing through serious dynamic changes that switch from Newsom and her harp alone to an instrumental palette of violin hits, accordion and glockenspiel and some unique sounds.This isn't even taking the lyrics into account; I don't listen to lyrics much, but it's hard to deny there's some beautiful imagery here, even more incredible because it feels like she's just plucking the words out of the air. Again, effortless, filling up 15 minutes so gracefully she makes every prog-rock pretender sound like they're trying too hard.It's called Ys. Undoubtedly one of the finest records of the year. You're going to keep hearing about it, so get on the ball and download a track or two. Even if you think you're going to hate it; you won't.1. Emily2. Monkey and Bear3. Sawdust and Diamonds4. Only Skin5. Cosmia
Locating MOG account...
Comments (9)