XL CD REVIEWS

Joanna Newsom, Nanci Griffith, Tia Carrera

Monday, November 13, 2006

Joanna Newsom

'Ys'

(Drag City)

There are the albums before Joanna Newsom's sophomore effort, "Ys," and there are the albums after.

Named after a mythical French city flooded by Satan, "Ys" is five-songs long. The shortest, "Cosmia," is just over seven minutes. The longest, "Only Skin," is just shy of seventeen, with 48 verses comprised of roughly 1,266 words. Collectively, they read like an Emily Dickinson journal hijacked by James Joyce, and they're filled with so much mystery it will take a Ken Burns documentary to unlock them.

Let's backtrack: Newsom's debut album, "The Milk-Eyed Mender," introduced her as the fairy princess of Devendra Banhart's freak-folk scene. Dainty and diminutive, she was dwarfed by the seemingly unwieldy harp that accompanied her helium-voiced tales of sprouts, beans, peaches, plums, pears, clams, crabs, cockles, and cowries. "Mender" was curious and quirky, but the parts were greater than the sum.

Turns out there's no other way to listen to "Ys" than in its entirety. Accordingly, Newsom's stream-of-consciousness lyrics and breathless delivery shoot you down the rabbit hole. Of course, "Ys" isn't a one-woman work; it includes the flight-of-fancy arrangements of Van Dyke Parks, who produced Brian Wilson's legendary "Smile," and the backing of an orchestra.

Still, file under masterpiece.

— Michael Hoinski

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Nanci Griffith

'Ruby's Torch'

Rounder Records

Singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith has put together an eloquent and sanguine collection of torch song originals and covers that burn bright against a Texas sky. A torch song is a lamenting composition about unrequited love. It is typically sung by a female and is often jazzed up by the likes of a princess of heartbreak like Nina Simone or Billie Holiday.

On "Ruby's Torch," however, it comes by way of folk ballads and the Blue Moon Orchestra. The piano twinkles and the hum of the strings and woodwinds are enough to stand alone, but they instead create an unfaltering passionate landscape over which Griffith lays down a sorrowful serenade.

Three of the tracks are Tom Waits songs, and Griffith succeeds in making them her own. She takes to raspy blues quite well on "Ruby's Arms." Her keen sense of balance is obvious from the beginning. On "When I Dream," she mixes exposed folk and country feeling in a way that makes it obvious why her music was called "folkabilly." A classical sentimentality is also added on "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" which was popularized by Frank Sinatra. And just like that she breezes by, making you remember a time when love came on gentle lips but with a potent sting.

— Will Mills

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Tia Carrera

Self-titled

(Australian Cattle God)

Five years of freely blasted rock action and counting, Tia Carrera emerged from the blue cloud to deliver album No. 3, featuring seven long jams of improvised power trio musk. Seven tracks in a couple of studios over two years: not too shabby, guys!

OK, OK, we kid because we love. After all, guitarist and new dad Jason Morales has diapering duties and runs sound at Emo's, bassist Andrew Duplantis also does time in Son Volt and drummer Erik Conn teaches drums.

And frankly, too many improvisational units feel their every note is of interest and are compelled to release it (Sun City Girls, I'm looking at you). This simply feeds the most irritating type of hobby-rock collectors. Tia albums are still a little like events.

Paradoxically, some of us can't get enough of this goop (good thing a 2007 album has been promised). "Eastside Jive" and the sun-eating closer "End Transmission" feature hot Leslie organ action from Eza Reynolds, Jeff Swanson's laptop blips add texture and spark to "Countdown, Liftoff," and the pre-written riff on "Carrera!" adds a welcome root-groove. So fill the bath, pour the wine, crack open that copy of "Dune" and bask in the purity of their psychedelic thunder. These great apes can (and should) keep hitting their instruments pretty much forever.

— Joe Gross