Have One on Me
The new Joanna Newsom song in the upper right corner here is sounding quite good -
We saw her play with the Chicago Symphony a couple years back and though it was thoroughly impressive, the strings seemed muted. Maybe it is just me wanted to see a woman being overpowered by my own Wagnerian dreams, but perhaps there is a personality con job going on here. The new songs she played, which I can only assume will be on this new record, seemed to reach back more to an Appalachian (well maybe Rocky Mountain) folk – but this aint John Denver. They maybe bordered on becoming too far gone down the path of long epic ballading – but maybe that’s because I’ve yet to draw my own life’s breath from these new stories – for length and the absence of brevity seems that it could be an issue for Have One on Me. I’ve always assumed it was correct that people were made to digest music as an artistic experience in 20 to 30 minute chunks.
I’m simply trying to say this is fascinating listening here, and this is from somebody who found The Milk-Eyed Mender unlistenable. J Newsom is far above us all, which is sort of unfair to say because she is clearly playing a different game, and what the hell, a triple-LP for $25 – I’ve already pre-ordered mine.