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It’s not you it’s me. Or maybe it’s both of us.

It’s sunday and I should be working on a much delayed project, but instead I’ll write something here just to procrastinate a little bit longer.

So this is a sort of goodbye and an explanation why I haven’t posted in a while (even though I doubt anyone cares). The main reason : I don’t like Newsom’s last album (I think I can confidently say that a few months after its release). Had I liked it, I’d probably keep on sharing my enthusiasm about her and her music, but now I just can’t. Not liking an album of your favorite songwriter shouldn’t be a big deal, but I’m afraid it is for me. Because the admiration I had for her now applies to her past, it also applies to mine ; and because this admiration was a part of my personality, It’s a little like I’m a different person now. In a way I feel like I’ve been in this great relationship (a very asymetrical one of course, she doesn’t know me), but that thing happened that made realise how far we grew apart.

It would be hard for me to pinpoint exactly what I dislike about Divers. I was mindblown the first times I listened to it. It’s Newsom, so yes, it is a work of genius : great music, great writing, great arrangements. But even the first times there was a slight unease that I couldn’t shake off. So I left it at that for a while, thinking that maybe the unpleasantness was because Divers is loaded with so many earworms that stay with you for days after a listen. But the truth is it never bothered before about any of her albums. So what’s different with this one? The harmonies are a bit more modern maybe, in a mainstream kind of way, which is not a good way. But HOOM was already a bit like that, and it is my favorite Newsom album, a work of devastating beauty, from the first note to the last. I think what irks me about Divers is how pretty it sounds. I don’t like “pretty” in music, never have, I find that irritating. And I never thought of her music as “pretty” before. But with Divers the prettiness makes everything else inaudible for me. A good example to try to explain that is the song “Divers”. Such a disappointment. The first recording of it (by some fellow at some venue) was so promising, I was looking forward to the studio version. But it turns out I feel nothing when I listen to that one. It’s still the same song, but it doesn’t sound authentic. I doesn’t speak to me anymore, like it’s coming from another place entirely, one that I’m not interested in. It’s not the voice of the poor wife of the diver, it’s just a pretty song tailored for the educated american middle class. That’s not the Newsom I like.

I would however save “Same old man”. That one is a killer, even better than the Karen Dalton version. But sadly it’s the only one she didn’t write, and also the only one that sounds like a remnant of her past self (or maybe “The things I say” too, to a lesser extent).

I would also keep the second part of Sapokanikan, one of the most beautful thing she wrote. Too bad the first part of it is so horribly pretty (”doooooo you looove me?”...ugh.)

Okay that’s enough for the weird break up letter. So long, wish you all the best.

[jonananusom]

A woman is alive! A woman is alive; You do not take her for a sign in nacre on a stone, Alone, unfaceted and fine.

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by carmen catuti

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by carmen catuti

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Divers // Joanna Newsom // Paul Thomas Anderson

Watch.

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Joanna Newsom - Divers 

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“I think the thing that is most important to me about invoking the ocean is not the ocean itself, it’s the line separating sea and sky. I think most of the songs that take place on the ocean are very concerned with that line.” —  Folksinger Joanna Newsom on the nautical motif of her new album, Divers

After five and a half years spent in varying degrees of seclusion, cult songwriter, singer and harpist Joanna Newsom released her long-awaited new album, Divers, on October 23. Newsweek chatted with Newsom about her new album, why she doesn’t put her music on Spotify and her recent film dabblings.

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The beginning of this interview is so comically surreal, I thought it was a parody.

Stand Brave, Life-Liver: An Interview With Joanna Newsom

The musician on her new album Divers, abandoning the classical idea of “good singing,” and admiring Grimes.

Interview by Tavi Gevinson. Illustration by María Inéz Gul.

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Joanna Newsom

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(via VIRGINIE KHATEEB (@virginiekhateeb) • Photos et vidéos Instagram)

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This interview has a lot of interesting info including Joanna will wear custom outfits by Michael Van Der Ham on tour