Chimpomatic

Last year I incurred some major flack for rewarding Joanna Newsom a flawless 5/5 for her remarkable second album Ys. Well I still stand by that decision and am tempted to give this 3 track EP the same accolade but feel it might alienate me from my fellow chimps who are yet to discover the magic of this artist. So call it peer pressure but I will not be giving this release full marks and I am not proud of my actions because it is yet another astounding piece of work by the young harpist.

This contains one new song and two old ones. All are without the orchestra that dominated Ys and are played live with her touring band. This totally changes the songs and gives them a much more folky sound. The new song Colleen is as joyous as any Irish jig you're likely to hear and conceptually could have played quite happily on Ys. The reworking of The Milk Eyed Mender's Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie gives this song new depths by adding accompanying vocals by drummer Neil Morgan and it leads on to the stripped down version of Ys' Cosmia. This version is so impressive as it shows a drastic progression from the original sound in this short period. Using guitars and banjos this song is stripped of all it's orchestral grandeur and the result is just as moving. It has been almost doubled in length and the final half is a beautiful instrumental of harp and guitar which fades out to a whisper bringing this brief delight to a sublime close.