Have One on Me by Joanna Newsom (Drag City)
Folk music is enjoying interesting times. Unlike classical music, whose endless centenaries and revivals root it firmly in the historical, folk is employing its own traditions to create original and relevant work. Young American acts like Grizzly Bear, Devendra Banhart, Sufjan Stevens and, arguably, Animal Collective, are writing the kind of innovative music which, though reminiscent of the late 1960s and early 1970s electric scene, is just as comfortable in the hip bars of New York and London as a beer tent in Dorset.
Since her classic 2004 debut album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, Joanna Newsom has proved herself just as inventive, not least for the nuanced phrases and rhythms which she plucks from her instrument, the pedal harp. But it is her voice which is truly striking. Persistent, liberated, at times even feral, its girlish, petulant pitch cuts right into the poetry of her lyric writing. And combined with the quirky arrangements that sometimes accompany her songs (Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks orchestrated her last album) the effect is to transport you along undiscovered paths of the Appalachian Mountains, even when stuck in a traffic jam on the A4. Have One On Me, her third album, is an ambitious triple CD set, but may prove to be the broadest and most beautiful landscape yet.
This article originally appeared in the March 2010 edition of Prospect
