Joanna Newsom And The Ys Street Band
EP

THE REVIEW

Her debut album, "The Milk Eyed Mender," from 2004, managed, thanks to the spiritual guidance of Will Oldham, to earn a prominent place in the vibrant American indie-folk scene. The musical talent expressed through her harp and voice, combined with a doll-like face, did the rest.

Two years later came her definitive consecration. "Ys," her second album, was deemed by critics and others as one of the best releases of 2006. Five tracks, all over nine minutes long, show a mature Joanna, confident in her abilities, capable of drawing from the strings of her cumbersome instrument all her essence, supported by those hawks Steve Albini and Jim O'Rourke during recording.

As a fitting supplement to this work, this year saw the release of the EP "Joanna Newsom And The Ys Street Band." Three tracks in the spirit of the letter C, whose meaning escapes us, that confirm the playful personality, enigmatic and elusive nature of the beautiful Californian singer-songwriter. The first piece, "Colleen," the only unreleased track, unfolds on a percussive background on which the harp and guitars play with Newsom's delicate voice, to recreate a medieval atmosphere, similar to those dark and fairy-tale landscapes painted on Ys. From the debut album comes "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie," a brief (by her standards) acoustic duet ballad. Finally, "Cosmia," from Ys, lasts almost twice as long as the original version, takes us along the paths of imagination, now in dark and stormy seas, then in forests inhabited by fantastic beings, and finally into the infinite space of the cosmos.

If you appreciated "Ys," this 24-minute EP is indispensable for you (as was, for various reasons, the EP following "Gulag Orkestar" by Beirut) to delve deeper into the Newsom universe, to know the different aspects of her colorful personality, to be captivated by the magic of her elves and to fly astride Pegasus.