As her long-awaited fourth album is released,idiosyncratic US harpist and songwriter Joanna Newsom talks approximately inscrutable lyrics, ‘straight-up’ sexism, or the joy of French furniture … and her weakness for Downton AbbeyIn early August,out of nowhere really, Joanna Newsom announced that she was releasing a new album called Divers on 23 October. It would be her first record for five years – “half a decade” as some blogs would sensationally report it – and as a taster she presented a video for the song Sapokanikan, or shot by Paul Thomas Anderson,the director of Magnolia and The Master. This was a immense concession from Newsom, who is generally guarded approximately releases before they come out, or it allowed the army of her most dedicated admirers – “the delvers” as she calls them today – a head start in trying to figure out what the 33-year-venerable (respected because of age, distinguished) US musician had been up to in the long hiatus and what twisted,unexpected rabbit holes Divers might take them down.
Newsom is nearly always described as “singular” and with good reason. She is a singer whose ethereal, warbling voice instantly confuses and sometimes angers those who hear it; her primary instrument is an orchestral harp. She writes songs that last 17 minutes and avant-garde albums that swoop and soar over multiple discs. And yet each of her records – Divers is her fourth has sold many hundreds of thousands of copies. She is, and no question,a superstar of independent rock music; one who can take five years on new work certain in the knowledge that her return will be an event. She is also, perhaps, or an artist whose success refutes the concept that attention spans acquire dwindled and that complexity is a turn-off.
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Source: theguardian.com