Ys Ys Oh Ys
If you’re gonna make an album with orchestral arrangements care of living legend composer Van Dyke Parks, you’re gonna have to go all out to perform it right. That’s why the first half of super English major/elven queen Joanna Newsom’s grandiose show last night at Benaroya Hall featured the accompaniment of local 29-piece chamber orchestra the Northwest Sinfonia to cover her last full-length, the epic five-song masterpiece Ys ("ees"). It’s not hard to recreate a lushly recorded album when you’ve got the combination of the Sinfonia, Newsom’s three-person touring group---which she’s termed the "Ys Street Band"---and Newsom plucking complex polyrhythms (and making it look easy) on an ornate harp, itself a work of art.
Treated as a single entity, all of Ys was played in order with the sumptuous orchestral flourishes intact. While it’s incredibly faithful to the album, at times the orchestration was sonically overwhelming, like when dark fairy tale "Monkey and Bear" builds to its galloping crescendo. As on the album, the centerpiece was the moving solo track "Sawdust and Diamonds," where all eyes were on Newsom, including those of the orchestra. The lights came back up, the last two pieces from Ys were played, and at the intermission, the Northwest Sinfonia took its leave to thunderous applause and a standing ovation.
At this point, we were bowled over by the evolution of Newsom as a performer. The last time we saw her, we were impressed with how she had matured as an artist. This time around, the progression was that much more apparent: Joanna as full-fledged woman, complete with fancy dress and deeper, breathy grown-up voice. After a year-plus of playing them live, the songs of Ys had evolved, such that even the phrasing had changed, no longer by-the-book, insert-voice-crack-here. And then Joanna, along with the Ys Street Band, returned for the second half of her show, and we were instantly disappointed.
Despite all that evolution, Joanna Newsom was back to her old tics. Perhaps we suffered from unduly high expectations, but after hearing her burgeoning adult voice, we were hoping for old Milk-Eyed Mender songs revamped sans love-it-or-hate-it little girl mewing. Instead, "Bridges and Balloons," "The Book of Right-On," and "Inflammatory Writ" were performed much like the originals. New song "Colleen" off of this year’s EP wasn’t too impressive live, but she did perform a really pretty version of "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie" (also found on the same EP) before closing with an as-yet-untitled song, where once again the richness of her newfound voice startled us. The encore was "Peach, Plum, Pear," a good track, but man, we would've killed for a semi-ironic cover. Can you imagine a strikingly talented artist like Joanna strumming along on her gilded harp to "Ice Ice Baby" or Beck’s "Loser"? Now that would have been awesome.
