I haven’t followed Joanna Newsom much since her debut album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, came out in 2004, madly waving its freak folk flag. To say that her voice is polarizing is almost an understatement; she is the Tom Waits of indie folk. I know people who adore her, and I know some who find her music insufferable. I’ve always been somewhere in between. Clearly, she is talented and has an incredible mastery of the harp. But that voice! That voice: haunting, grating, nasally yet oddly beautiful. Hers is not music made for the casual listener. I have to be in a certain mood to enjoy her music. Yet you have to respect the fact that she is not trying to please anyone. She just wants to make music, music that has been meticulously crafted to sound the way that it does in her own head (Newsom has been described as “difficult” to work with, even by her own standards).
Coming off a workday that had begun somewhere around 6 a.m., I loaded up on coffee in the theater lobby upon arriving at the show. Strains of opening act Robin Pecknold floated through the marbled halls as I mentally braced myself for what I thought would be a sleepy evening of music. I was basically about to watch a two hour-long harp performance. Shows at The Moore are incredibly mellow, largely because the audience is subjected to assigned seating. Like watching a real theater show. It’s a strange departure from standing in cramped clubs and going home smelling like the dude you stood next to for the last two hours. It’s…classy–and completely suited for Newsom’s sound.
Her set began with a solo rendition of “’81” off of her latest album, Have One On Me. Clad in a slight, puff-sleeved floral dress, Newsom’s sprite-like appearance is arresting in person. She is tiny, especially when cradling the behemoth of a harp in her able hands. Subsequent songs were accompanied by violins, guitar (played by composer Ryan Francesconi, who did the musical arrangements for the new album and the tour), trombone, percussion, and a mess of other instruments. But I could honestly watch Newsom alone with her harp for hours.
The rest of the set list stuck mostly to her newest material, interspersed with tracks off of Ys and The Milk-Eyed Mender. Newsom ended with a wonderfully rearranged version of “Peach, Plum, Pear,” which drew a standing ovation from the audience. For her encore she chose the lyrically wistful “Baby Birch.”
Newsom’s songs really are poetry, filled with feverish imagery and typically mundane observations suddenly rendered profound. It’s funny when people comment that Newsom belongs to a different era; she doesn’t seem to like that criticism, from interviews with her that I’ve read. But the harp playing plus references to shepherds and harvesting land does conjure up a myriad of medieval images. I’d liken her lyricism more to magical realism, with its fantastical elements and interweaving narrative threads. She’s most definitely a product of our modern times; she’s even dating a modern comedic icon (Andy Samberg of SNL, a minor one at that). She’s simply the product of having a boundless imagination and an unorthodox childhood (no television in the house, trips to folk camp every summer, etc.).
It’s worth noting that her voice has changed considerably. Throat nodules from 2009 forced her to be silent for two months, not even allowing her to cry. It completely altered the way Newsom sings. There is still that quirky tinge of shrillness, but her voice has become far more accessible. It’s a voice she now seems able to control (something that used to be impossible, she’s said in interviews), and one that is starkly beautiful. I can’t say I terribly miss her old sound, but her new vocal styling certainly makes Have One On Me one of my favorite albums of 2010.
