Released in 2006, Ys stands as one of the most ambitious and uniquely realized albums of the early 21st century. For Joanna Newsom, this sophomore record was a considerable departure from the more stripped-down, Appalachian-folk sound of her debut, The Milk-Eyed Mender (2004). While her debut charmed listeners with whimsical, often playful melodies and lyrical vignettes, Ys reached for something grander and more immersive—eschewing traditional song structures in favor of sprawling, multi-part epics that read more like mythic poems than pop songs. In a landscape still dominated by indie-folk revivalists and straightforward singer-songwriters, Ys arrived as a deeply literary and highly unconventional piece, challenging listeners to follow Newsom into an expansive, intricately woven sonic and lyrical world.
While she might have risked alienating the casual listener, Newsom was also on a mission to create an album that moved beyond the ephemeral—songs that weren’t merely heard but experienced in layers. Each track on Ys, of which there are only five, unfolds across a dreamlike landscape, driven by Newsom’s harp and elevated by lush orchestration from Van Dyke Parks, who was known for his work with the Beach Boys’ Smile project. Parks’s orchestration, combined with Steve Albini’s organic engineering and Jim O’Rourke’s masterful mixing, contributed to Ys’s delicate balancing act between the deeply personal and the wildly ambitious.
Sonic Exploration
The production of Ys is nothing short of meticulous, matching Joanna Newsom’s vision with an approach that captures every nuance of her intricate compositions. Recorded by Steve Albini and mixed by Jim O’Rourke, the album possesses a crispness and clarity that allows each harp pluck, vocal tremor, and orchestral swell to come through with crystalline precision. This clarity serves the album’s rich storytelling, emphasizing the organic, almost tactile quality of Newsom’s harp while allowing Van Dyke Parks’s orchestration to bloom in full detail around it.
Rather than opting for a lo-fi, indie-folk aesthetic, Ys presents a pristine, high-fidelity sound, letting its musicality resonate as if the listener is right there in the room with Newsom and her ensemble. The choice of such precise production gives the album a feeling of timelessness, transcending trends and situating it in an almost classical context.
Musical Arrangements
The arrangements on Ys are nothing short of extraordinary. While Newsom’s voice and harp remain the album’s central pillars, Parks’s orchestration creates a lush, shifting landscape that complements her narrative lyrics. His arrangements are ambitious yet restrained, filling the sonic space without overwhelming Newsom’s intimate vocal delivery.
The album features an unusual lineup for a folk record: strings, woodwinds, and brass all play prominent roles, contributing to its otherworldly sound. Songs like “Emily” and “Only Skin” unfold like movements in a symphony, with Parks’s orchestration weaving in and out of Newsom’s melodic themes, enhancing the lyrical depth of her tales of love, loss, and transformation. Notably, these arrangements create a sense of both grandeur and intimacy—a rare balancing act that helps each track feel epic yet personal.
Genre Elements
Ys draws from a diverse array of genres, blending traditional folk with elements of classical and baroque pop. Newsom’s harp evokes folk traditions, but her compositions also nod toward the art-song structures of the Romantic and Renaissance eras, creating a bridge between old and new worlds. Her voice, an unconventional, unfiltered soprano, weaves in qualities of Appalachian folk singing while embracing a theatricality more akin to opera or art song. Parks’s orchestration introduces touches of chamber pop, an unexpected complement to Newsom’s harp-centered compositions, infusing them with cinematic sweep. This genre-blending approach gives Ys a sense of timelessness; it’s not constrained by the usual markers of indie or folk music but instead feels like a genre of its own.
Lyrical Analysis
The lyrical landscape of Ys is vast, dense, and richly textured, with Joanna Newsom weaving tales that are as enigmatic as they are emotionally potent. The album’s themes revolve around memory, mortality, love, and the passage of time—central pillars that anchor her epic, poetic storytelling. Newsom’s lyrics read like fables, full of natural imagery, cosmic allusions, and symbolic language, creating an intricate tapestry where personal experience intersects with myth.
Each song unfolds a narrative that feels both intimate and grand, with recurring motifs of water, celestial bodies, and cycles of life and death that lend the album a mythological resonance. “Emily,” for example, references her sister, a physicist, and unfolds like a conversation on knowledge, wonder, and the comfort of shared memories, while “Only Skin” sprawls over 16 minutes, blending scenes of love, loss, and transformation into one lyrical tour de force.
Lyrical Depth
The lyrics on Ys are undeniably complex and deeply poetic, showcasing Newsom’s gift for metaphor and symbolic imagery. Rather than following a straightforward, linear narrative, her lyrics are full of intricate wordplay and layered meanings, leaving ample room for interpretation. Lines like “Are you mine? My Heart? Mine anymore?” in “Only Skin” resonate with a quiet heartbreak, while verses in “Sawdust & Diamonds” unfurl in a style reminiscent of Romantic poetry, drawing on both nature and introspection to explore longing and vulnerability. Newsom’s language is filled with anachronisms and rare phrasings, reinforcing the album’s timeless quality while also demanding close listening and introspection from the audience. This density in the lyrics rewards repeated listens, as each pass reveals new insights, symbols, and nuances.
Emotional Impact
The emotional impact of Ys is profound, achieved through the raw vulnerability of Newsom’s lyricism and the intimacy with which she delivers each line. The lyrics evoke a wide spectrum of emotions—melancholy, nostalgia, joy, and a profound sense of wonder. Newsom’s voice, often lilting and unrestrained, heightens these emotional layers, conveying everything from childlike curiosity to grief with an authenticity that’s disarming.
Songs like “Monkey & Bear,” with its tragic tale of captivity and freedom, evoke empathy for the characters Newsom conjures, while “Sawdust & Diamonds” resonates with a sense of personal revelation and catharsis. Her lyrics invite listeners into a deeply personal world yet are expansive enough to connect with universal emotions, creating a sense of shared human experience. By blending complex storytelling with genuine feeling, Newsom crafts a lyrical journey that is as hauntingly beautiful as it is intellectually stimulating.
Cohesion and Flow
The cohesion of Ys is remarkable, with each track flowing seamlessly into the next to create an immersive experience that feels like one continuous journey. Although the album consists of only five songs, each piece unfolds over several minutes, giving ample space for themes and emotional arcs to develop in depth. The sequencing feels deliberate and well-considered; the album opens with “Emily,” a track that introduces the listener to Newsom’s introspective musings and cosmic imagery, setting the tone for the lyrical and musical journey that follows.
As the album progresses, each track seems to pull listeners further into a dreamlike world, with “Monkey & Bear” telling a tale of struggle and liberation, followed by the contemplative “Sawdust & Diamonds” and the sprawling “Only Skin,” which serves as a centerpiece of both emotional and narrative complexity. The album closes with “Cosmia,” a song steeped in themes of grief and rebirth, providing a sense of closure without fully resolving the album’s central mysteries.
Thematic Consistency
Thematic consistency is a defining feature of Ys, as Newsom maintains a cohesive tone, style, and emotional depth throughout. Her use of recurring motifs—such as celestial imagery, natural elements, and references to time and memory—creates a sense of unity across the tracks. Each song, while distinct in its narrative and mood, feels connected to the others through shared symbolism and a similar musical structure, anchored by her harp and the lush orchestration by Van Dyke Parks.
This approach ensures that the album doesn’t feel fragmented or disjointed, despite its ambitious scope. Newsom’s poetic lyricism and complex storytelling build on each other from track to track, resulting in an album that feels like a single, cohesive piece rather than a collection of standalone songs.
There are no jarring shifts in tone or style across Ys; instead, it feels as though each song is a chapter in a larger narrative, with emotional peaks and valleys that contribute to a broader arc. The pacing allows listeners to process the weight of each track, and the quiet spaces between songs create natural pauses that feel almost reverent, as if giving listeners a moment to absorb the stories and emotions before delving into the next. This careful construction of flow and thematic unity reinforces Ys as a cohesive and transformative album, one that guides listeners through an intense yet beautiful meditation on life, loss, and the profound mysteries of existence.
Standout Tracks and Moments
Among the five tracks on Ys, each stands out in its own right, but several songs offer especially memorable moments of artistic brilliance, where Joanna Newsom’s unique vision and musical talent shine through.
Only Skin
Perhaps the most remarkable is “Only Skin,” a sprawling 17-minute track that feels like an epic journey unto itself. With its length, narrative richness, and emotional peaks, “Only Skin” encapsulates the essence of Ys—a blend of lyrical introspection and sweeping orchestration. This track reveals Newsom’s ambitious storytelling in full form, moving from scenes of love and loss to broader reflections on life and identity.
“Only Skin” includes some of Newsom’s most vivid and haunting imagery, such as “scrape your knee; it is only skin / Makes the sound of violins” and a tender vocal exchange with Bill Callahan, whose deep, grounding tone creates an unexpected contrast to Newsom’s ethereal voice. The back-and-forth adds both depth and intimacy, making the song a centerpiece of the album.
Emily
Another standout track is “Emily,” the opening song, which sets the thematic and emotional stage for the entire album. Written as an ode to Newsom’s sister, an astrophysicist, “Emily” explores the complexities of knowledge, memory, and familial bonds. The lyricism is dense and symbolic, balancing poetic abstraction with personal touches that ground the song in real emotion. One of the track’s unforgettable moments is when Newsom sings, “The meteorite is the source of the light, / And the meteor’s just what we see.”
This line, blending scientific metaphor with a sense of wonder, reflects Newsom’s fascination with both the physical and metaphysical, making “Emily” a beautifully layered meditation on the search for meaning. The orchestration, which alternates between lushness and restraint, complements Newsom’s words, enhancing the song’s contemplative atmosphere.
Sawdust & Diamonds
“Sawdust & Diamonds” is another highlight, notable for its rawness and the intimacy of its arrangement. Unlike other tracks on Ys, this song features no orchestration, leaving Newsom’s voice and harp fully exposed. This stripped-down approach creates an immediate, almost confessional feel, as if Newsom is sharing a deeply personal story directly with the listener.
The lyric, “I wasn’t born of a whistle or milked from a thistle at twilight / No; I was all horns and thorns, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright,” showcases her ability to craft imagery that is both vivid and unsettling, blending nature’s harsh beauty with human resilience. It’s one of the album’s most powerful moments, highlighting Newsom’s talent for making the listener feel both the vulnerability and strength of her narratives.
Memorable Moments
In terms of memorable moments, one cannot overlook the transitions where Van Dyke Parks’ orchestration subtly builds or dissipates, adding emotional layers without overpowering Newsom’s harp. For instance, in “Monkey & Bear,” Parks’s strings bring a tension that mirrors the tale’s underlying themes of captivity and freedom, capturing the essence of the story. Then there’s the way Newsom uses silence, allowing breaths between lines and verses to create an almost sacred atmosphere, as though each pause invites the listener to reflect on what has just been sung. These subtle uses of dynamics, silence, and gradual instrumental builds give Ys its distinct ebb and flow, making it an album where the arrangement and lyrical moments are equally evocative.
Artistic Contribution and Innovation
Ys stands as a groundbreaking work within both the folk genre and the wider music industry, defying genre conventions and elevating Joanna Newsom’s reputation as one of the most inventive artists of her generation. Released during the mid-2000s indie-folk revival, Ys diverged dramatically from the minimalist, lo-fi aesthetic that characterized many of Newsom’s contemporaries. While artists like Iron & Wine and Sufjan Stevens were celebrated for their intimate, stripped-back storytelling, Ys pushed far beyond these norms, reimagining folk as something expansive, symphonic, and deeply literary. With its complex orchestration, epic song structures, and unconventional vocal style, Ys proved that folk could be both intellectually ambitious and emotionally raw, challenging perceptions of what folk music could encompass.
Long form approach
The album’s innovation is evident in nearly every aspect, from its meticulous production to its structure and themes. One of its most striking features is the decision to forgo traditional song length and format; the shortest song on Ys still runs over seven minutes, while others, like “Only Skin,” span nearly 17 minutes. This long-form approach is rare in popular music, especially within folk, and it lends each track the space to explore intricate themes without the constraints of radio-friendly length. By embracing these epic forms, Newsom revived a classical sensibility that blended folk’s storytelling roots with the progressive ambition more typical of symphonic or art rock.
Production
Another innovation lies in the album’s collaborative production, bringing together a diverse and talented team—Steve Albini’s engineering, Van Dyke Parks’ lush orchestration, and Jim O’Rourke’s mixing—each of whom contributed to the unique texture and depth of Ys. Parks’ orchestration is particularly notable, transforming Newsom’s harp compositions into layered, orchestral pieces that evoke the grandeur of a film score while maintaining the intimacy of folk music. The orchestration on Ys is not merely decorative; it interacts with Newsom’s harp and voice in an almost conversational way, responding to her melodies and lyrics and enhancing the album’s emotional and thematic resonance. This blending of classical composition with folk instrumentation was a daring choice that pushed the boundaries of both genres.
Storytelling
Lyrically, Ys is one of the most innovative albums of its era. While many folk songs rely on straightforward narratives or familiar themes, Newsom approached her lyrics with a poet’s eye, drawing on mythology, nature, and introspective imagery. The thematic and linguistic depth of Ys makes it feel like a hybrid of music, poetry, and literature, with Newsom’s lyrics often demanding the kind of attention and analysis reserved for great works of literature. By infusing her songs with layers of symbolism and poetic language, Newsom brought a new level of literary sophistication to folk music, demonstrating that song lyrics could stand as complex, meaningful texts in their own right.
Closing Thoughts
Ys is an album that defies easy categorization and challenges the limits of folk music, standing as both a deeply personal work and a bold artistic statement. Its strengths are plentiful: the album’s ambitious compositions, poetic lyricism, and intricate orchestration reveal a masterful attention to detail and an unwavering commitment to a singular vision. Newsom’s harp and distinctive vocal style, combined with Van Dyke Parks’ sweeping arrangements, create a soundscape that is immersive and transformative, pushing listeners to embrace the album’s winding narratives and emotional peaks. Lyrically, Ys is unparalleled in its depth, demanding listeners’ patience and full engagement, but rewarding them with vivid, resonant stories and layered symbolism that reveal new meanings with each listen.
In terms of weaknesses, Ys may be inaccessible to casual listeners due to its demanding length and complexity. The long, unorthodox song structures and dense lyrics require a level of engagement that could be daunting, especially for those accustomed to more conventional folk or pop music. However, for those willing to immerse themselves fully, these “weaknesses” transform into strengths, lending the album a timeless quality and a uniquely rewarding listening experience that extends beyond a single playthrough.
Place in Career
In the context of Newsom’s career, Ys remains one of her most defining works—a turning point that elevated her from a talented folk artist to a groundbreaking voice in contemporary music. This album has become a reference point in discussions of experimental folk, art-folk, and genre-blending in indie music, cementing her influence on musicians who seek to push the boundaries of folk and storytelling. For listeners, Ys offers an experience that is at once challenging and profoundly moving, inviting reflection on universal themes of love, loss, and self-discovery.
Official Rating
Ys deserves a perfect score of 10 out of 10, not because it fits neatly within mainstream expectations, but because it surpasses them with an uncompromising vision and rare artistic ambition. This album represents the very best of what music can achieve: it’s a work of art that transcends boundaries, expands the listener’s emotional landscape, and refuses to be anything less than extraordinary. Newsom’s artistry, creativity, and courage on Ys make it an album that is not only unforgettable but essential. It is, without a doubt, a 10/10—a masterpiece that will continue to resonate with listeners and inspire artists for generations.