Joanna Newsom has come a long way from her days as The Milk-Eyed Mender, when she was known equally for her vocal idiosyncrasies as for her musical brilliance. For many listeners, her voice was a stumbling block that just couldn’t be overcome.
Her 2006 follow-up, Ys, was an epic, orchestrated affair that saw the singer tone down her high-pitched nasality in favour of a more “Bjorkian” timbre. The album was far less divisive and met with near-universal acclaim.
Those looking for another epic are in luck: Have One On Me is a whopping triple album that, at six lengthy songs apiece, is a veritable musical feast that matches the intimacy of Newsom’s first record with the scope of her second.
Disc one is opened by “Easy,” a dramatic song that almost sounds written for the stage with it’s constantly ascending and descending scales and quickly shifting moods. Jabs of flute and horns nearing the end of the track give the track added dramatic flair.
The eleven-minute title track exemplifies Newsom’s knack for keeping the listener ever-intrigued: clever melodic twists, multiple song movements and dynamic, soft-loud vocals ensure that not a minute of the monumental song drags.
Joanna Newsom’s hook is that she imbues her songs with a lingering sense of melodic familiarity while always seeming strikingly unique musically, most notably on the gorgeous tip-toe of disc highlight “’81.” Newsom wears her influences on her sleeve, but never crosses the line between resemblance and plagiarism. On the rollicking first half of the piano-led “Good Intentions Paving Company,” she channels the charm and effervescence of a young Joni Mitchell, while the sombre and melodic “No Provenance” whiffs faintly of Kate Bush, albeit without her synthesized sound.
Of all six tracks here (which average more than seven minutes apiece), only closer “Baby Birch” drags slightly, and it’s only partially salvaged around the six minute mark, when a hand-clap suddenly turns into an enjoyably uptempo, harmonized ending.
On the whole, though, disc one of Have One On Me is a cohesive and consistent affair that sets the plot of the album in motion. And though it could arguably stand as a great album on its own, disc one’s sense of intimacy and spaciousness is best enjoyed as a prelude to the rest of Have One On Me, and incidentally, on headphones.
