My New Sonic Love Story

Last night, I fell asleep listening to Joanna Newsom. Of course, this was another musical discovery thanks to Last.fm, which I always keep playing during my planning period while I'm grading papers, and Newsom is occasionally streamed when I'm listening to "artists like Iron and Wine". I'm guessing the connection between the two is a melodic connection to the music of the Appalachians, although Newsom grew up and still lives around San Francisco.

That description, however, is kind of lacking for the quite unusual sound that Newsom produces. Imagine that Bjork and Isaac Brock (lead singer of Modest Mouse) issued forth from their metaphorical loins in the music and language centers of their brains a child, fully formed into the personification of the hybridization of their singing styles. Now, I'll be the first to admit that Bjork sucks. She's kind of cute in a weird way, but her singing grates on my nerves. Newsom avoids crossing that threshold between weird-but-captivating and just annoying, but her shifting, wandering vocals really do hearken to the singing style of Iceland's swan-wearing songstress.

Now, continuing on with the brain child metaphor, the child was born in the early Renaissance and later trained in classical music, but then was kidnapped to the present by Nigerian militants who'd somehow come across a time machine and thought that kidnapping this Celtic bard would somehow enable them to more easily capture an offshore oil platform in the Niger Delta. The child was then able to escape by entrancing the less-than-logical criminals with her hypnotic harp playing and fled to hippy-filled San Francisco, where she was exposed to the more avant-garde aspects of American indie rock. What you have left is the child-like voice of Newsom rolling and falling over orchestrations that combine musical influences from classical, Celtic, folk, and West African playing styles.

Now, I admit, I've probably already scared many of you off, and the fact that it's not as easy to find her mp3s as those of other, more mainstream artists will push you further from giving her a fair chance, but Last.fm does have a few 30-second samples and a few videos, that I'm assuming involve full-length renditions, although I've got a feeling you'll lose some of the complexity of the music due to the lower sound quality (actually, after watching a video, I'd avoid these as a method for first impressions). But, seriously, if you get the opportunity, give Newsom a chance. If you can get over the oddness of the voice (which was love-at-first-listen for me, but apparently one of the main detractors for some), it's likely you'll fall in love with the music.