According to legend, the mythical Breton city of Ys was the most wonderful city in the world. So wonderful in fact, that it gave its name to Paris, “Par-Ys” meaning “like Ys” in Breton. Built below sea level, it met its demise when Satan got hold of the keys to the damn walls and opened the gates. The reference to the city in the title of Joanna Newsom’s new album is apt because «Ys» is one of the most wonderful musical creations of recent times.
At first listen «Ys» feels a bit meandering and repetitive, the tracks blending into each other. But then you discover that the joy of the album lies in the subtle details: the rise and fall of the sonic tapestry and the delicious epic poetry of the five tracks. At the centre of it all is Newsom’s gorgeous voice, hovering somewhere between a young maiden waking in a meadow and a gnarled old crone shoutings warnings and whispering incantations. After a couple of days of listening you wake up and realise you’ve fallen under the spell of Newsom’s magical world.
It’s a world grounded in the delicate and expressive sounds of Newsom’s harp, and decorated with layers of lush orchestration, the polyphony of the instrumentation reflecting Newsom’s magpie eye for language and fantastic stories.
The standout track «Monkey & Bear» tells the tale of two animals who escape from the circus. At first this comes across as a modern day Aesop’s fable – while the Bear thinks they’ve found freedom, the Monkey intends to keep her dancing for money. By the fourth or fifth listen, the Bear dancing on her hind legs while children shriek and throw coins and the Monkey whispers “come on will you dance my darling”, it’s heartbreaking. The beauty of the music makes the album’s moments of emotional intensity – bodies dumbstruck with the sweetness of being, cities reduced to flickering wastelands – all the more poignant.
The bear’s name is Ursala, a nice play on the animal’s Latin name; and «Ys» is full of these references and word games. Much of the language is arcane, but there are as many aeroplanes as there are hollyhock and heather. Newsom’s Ys isn’t some historical artefact. It’s a fantastic city for our own time, at once mythical and contemporary, a linguistic and musical tapestry threaded from the wonders of the universe: everything from the smell of stone fruit being cut open, to the Pleiades, and doves stuffed with sawdust and diamonds.
