00-joanna_newsom-divers-2015-erp.nfo
Artist | Joanna Newsom
Title | Divers
Genre | Alternative Format | Album
Source | CDDA Time | 51:49
Label | Drag City Store | 2015
Catalog | DC561CD Rip | 2015
Bitrate | 223 kbps Size | 86.83 MB
Freq | 44.1 kHz Encoder | Lame 3.98.4
01. Anecdotes 6:27
02. Sapokanikan 5:10
03. Leaving The City 3:48
04. Goose Eggs 5:01
05. Waltz Of The 101st Lightborne 5:21
06. The Things I Say 2:35
07. Divers 7:06
08. Same Old Man 2:26
09. You Will Not Take My Heart Alive 4:01
10. A Pin-Light Bent 4:26
11. Time, As A Symptom 5:28
Although Joanna Newsom's Appalachian-meets-avant-garde take on folk music
is her most celebrated work, her range is even more inclusive than her solo
career suggests: the classically trained harpist adds a decidedly
different, textural sound to Nervous Cop, the noise rock trio that also
features Deerhoof's Greg Saunier and Hella's Zach Hill, and she also plays
keyboards for the Pleased, another San Francisco-area band more akin to
family and hometown of Nevada City, California, were musically rich: her
mother trained to be a concert pianist, her father was a guitarist, and her
brother and sister played the drums and cello, respectively. Meanwhile, the
Newsoms also counted composer/pianist Terry Riley as a neighbor, along with
Howard Hersh and W. Jay Sydeman.
If music is a time machine, able to transport listeners to different places
and eras as well as deep into memories, then Joanna Newsom steers "Divers"
as deftly as Jules Verne. She flits to and from 18th century chamber music,
19th century American folk music, '70s singer/songwriter pop, and other
sounds and eras with the lightness of a bird, one of the main motifs of her
fourth full-length. Her on-the-wing approach is a perfect fit for "Divers"
themes: Newsom explores 'the question of what's available to us as part of
the human experience that isn't subject to the sovereignty of time', as she
described it in a Rolling Stone interview. It's a huge subject, and even
though she worked with several different arrangers - including Dirty
Projectors' David Longstreth and Nico Muhly - she crystallizes the "Have
One On Me" triple-album ambition into 11 urgent songs that still allow her
plenty of variety.
"Leaving The City", with its linear beat and electric guitar, is the
closest she's come to an actual rock song; "You Will Not Take My Heart
Alive" could pass for medieval music, despite its mention of 'capillaries
glowing with cars'. While "Divers" is musically dense, it may be even more
packed with ideas and vivid imagery; its lyrics sheet reads like a libretto
(and is a necessary reference while listening). The bird calls that bookend
the album - and the way its final word ('trans-') flows into its first
('sending') - hint at the album's looping, eternal yet fleeting nature,
while "Anecdotes" introduces how each track feels like a microcosm (or
parallel universe) dealing with war, love, and loss in slightly different
ways.
"Waltz Of The 101st Lightborne", in which time-traveling soldiers end up
fighting their own ghosts, highlights "Divers" sci-fi undercurrent, which
is all the more intriguing paired with its largely acoustic sounds. Newsom
combines these contrasts between theatricality and intimacy, and city and
country, splendidly on "Sapokanikan," named for the Native American
settlement located where Greenwich Village stands. As she layers the ghosts
and memories of old Dutch masters, potter's fields, Tammany Hall, and
allusions to Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ozymandias, the music nods to ragtime
and other vintage American styles; it could be overwhelming if she didn't
return to the simple, poignant refrain: "Do you love me? Will you
remember?" Indeed, despite its literacy and embellishments, Newsom's music
is never just an academic exercise.
The album's emotional power grows as it unfolds: "Divers" itself reaches
deep, bringing the album's longing to the surface. "A Pin-Light Bent" finds
Newsom accepting that time is indeed finite with a quiet, riveting
intensity, building to the majestic finale "Time, As a Symptom," where the
personal, historical, and cosmic experiences of time she's pondered seem to
unite as she realizes, 'Time is just a symptom of love'. Newsom can make
her audience work almost as hard as she does, but the rewards are worth it:
Dazzling, profound, and affecting, "Divers" explorations of time only grow
richer the more time listeners spend with them.
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