Send "Joanna Newsom " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 It was a little disturbing at first to hear that Joanna Newsom's full-length follow-up to the ambitious and polarizing Ys would be a triple album. Where 2004's The Milk-Eyed Mender was an unusual record with its share of quirks (her squeaky voice and fondness for arcane language, the harp), it also had its simple pleasures. Most of the tracks were short and the sound was spare; you pretty much liked it or you didn't based on how you felt about Newsom's sound and her ability to put a song together. Ys, on the other hand, was unapologetically dense. The five songs averaged more than 10 minutes each, and through them Newsom sang continuously; Van Dyke Parks' arrangements were similarly relentless, seeming to comment upon and embellish almost every line. It was a rewarding album-- filled with memorable turns of phrase and impressive storytelling. Many were enthralled, and almost everyone at least admired it. But in comparison to Milk-Eyed, Ys took some serious work to crack. So when I heard that Newsom would be following it with a 3xLP set called Have One on Me, I had troubling visions of 25-minute songs with lyrics that stretched to 5,000 words.As it turns out, Have One on Me is a "triple album" in the vinyl sense, in the same way that the Flaming Lips' Embryonic is a "double album," even though it fits onto one CD. There are 18 songs here, and they total about two hours. To pick a couple of reference points from the CD era, that's the same length as Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and just a bit longer than Biggie's Life After Death. Two hours is a lot of music, but having it broken into three discs, each the length of a 1970s LP, helps. You can dip into Have One on Me at a given point, listen for a while, and move on to something else. But while the album invites sampling, I've found myself returning to a different section each time I sit down with it. The highlights are spread out evenly, and Newsom couldn't have sequenced the record any better....full text |
| Avclub |
| of how many the world should even want, it’s worth acknowledging the peculiar singularity of Joanna Newsom. Etiolated. With only two albums behind her, Newsom has cast herself as a transfixing character who, in terms of celestial strangeness and ethereality, makes Stevie Nicks seem like a substitute teacher. Her main instrument is the harp, her lyrical themes tend toward the cosmic, and her voice couldn’t be weirder. And now comes Have One On Me, which counts as Newsom’s most beguiling gesture yet. The first reason for that is a simple matter of length: Split over three CDs, Have One On Me lasts around two hours, with 14 of its 18 songs measuring in at six minutes or more. It’s a long album, and it plays that way. The second reason is more complicated, and it gets to both the strengths and weaknesses of an album that will take time to process in full. Musically, Newsom sounds, relatively speaking, downright conventional on Have One. After the odd, goading arrangements of 2006’s Ys, she seems to have prioritized clarity and space, whether on simple songs for just harp and voice, or more elaborate ones for up to 14 players. What has grown more idiosyncratic is Newsom’s voice, which sounds fuller and wanders into disparate ranges reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and Kate Bush....full text |
| Guardian |
| Pop attention spans have been in recession for some time; reputations can now be made entirely on laptops. But if any artist can justify an album filling three CDs, it is west coast bard Joanna Newsom. With her last stunning effort, 2006's Ys, Newsom led an artisanal counterinsurgency armed with a harp, luxuriant album art and allegorical compositions that frequently edged towards the eight-minute mark. Buy it from Buy the CD Joanna Newsom Have One on Me Drag City 2010 Those maximalist keynotes remain constant on her latest album, as does Newsom's roster of animal totems. Have One on Me introduces a number of new riffs too. The cover finds Newsom swapping medieval symbolism for flapper-era luxe; fans will ponder the stuffed fawns and chinoiserie for months to come. Gone are the intense studio orchestrations of Van Dyke Parks, replaced by the more varied input of Ys Street Band leader Ryan Francesconi. If the sound of air passing over microphones bookends every song, then it makes the music crackle with life. Ys concerned itself with fathers, sisters, lovers, death and astronomy; it is, perhaps, too early to say with any certainty what Have One on Me might be about; love, Lola Montez's spider dance and horse rustling ("You and Me, Bess") are just three themes. Newsom's work performed a great leap forward between her debut, 2004's The Milk-Eyed Mender, and Ys; there is a correspondingly Knievel-like vault here. Never lacking in assurance, the Newsom of Have One on Me has grown more graceful by loosening up. References to drinking punctuate these shape-shifting songs....full text |
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