sun 08/12/2024

CD: Joanna Newsom - Divers | reviews, news & interviews

CD: Joanna Newsom - Divers

CD: Joanna Newsom - Divers

Wonderful and ambitious songs that occasionally trip over their own cleverness

Title track 'Divers' is one of the best

“I always think she knows a little more than the rest of us,” said film director Paul Thomas Anderson, on casting Newsom as the knowing narrator Sortilège in last year’s Inherent Vice. Fans of her music know the feeling.

It’s five years since the epic Have One On Me, all of which time Newsom claims to have been working, on and off, on Divers, an inspiringly complex and ambitious collection discussing love, history, time travel, desolation, the indigenous people of New York (I’ve only got 300 words, so I’ll leave it there…).

Vocally, Björk and Wuthering Heights-era Kate Bush (with glimpses of Karen Dalton and Joni Mitchell) are the reference points. Make a quick comparison, though, and Newsom is more obviously artful than both, the lyrics denser and the delivery more complex and variable. It’s rather like watching a film made solely on hand-held cameras: vivid and distinctive, but sometimes exhausting, the challenge of working out what’s being said (the lyrics always matter here) too often pitted against the accompaniment.  

'Sapokanikan' is a seminar paper, novel or opera libretto, bursting to escape

“Sapokanikan” (named after a Native American Manhattan village, and the subject of a striking video directed by Anderson - see below), is a case in point. As she strolls through today’s New York, Newsom explores the history of thousands of years of colonisation and violence. I found myself trying to block out the music in order to follow the story. Form and content are wrestling one another, ostentatiously.

Newsom is a very serious and thoughtful songwriter, who has taken the folk-inspired art-song to new heights of complexity. The instrumentation is lush, sophisticated, and often very beautiful. Responses to her voice will depend on taste, of course, and occasionally I’ve still wanted to reach for the can of WD-40. Where she falls short of Björk, for me, is in her total vision, the way words, structure and music come together - or don’t. They work best when she manages to contain the narrative to song-like proportions. “Divers” and “Time, As A Symptom” are mysterious and wonderful. “Sapokanikan” is a seminar paper, novel or opera libretto, bursting to escape. Now there’s an idea for the next five years, Joanna.  

@matthewwrighter

Form and content are wrestling one another, ostentatiously

rating

Editor Rating: 
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)

Explore topics

Share this article

Add comment

The future of Arts Journalism

 

You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!

We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d

And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters