[under a CPell]

https://consequence.net/2023/03/joanna-newsom-new-music-fleet-foxes/

[under a CPell]

And they're all gorgeous and long

[Alex Ysoltsev]

And here is a Reddit tread with a huge collection of links to download (or watch) different recordings of Joanna's new performance:
https://www.reddit.com/r/JoannaNewsom/c ... egathread/

[queenofnerds]

Steve mentioned this to me and I nearly fainted! I'm so excited!!

[Steve]

At last!

This is great news.

I am late to the party, having only just seen this nearly-two-week-old news on Pitchfork
(scene-setter here - https://pitchfork.com/news/joanna-newso ... se-opener/
rather glowing review here - https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/joanna-n ... rise-show/
I'll paste both texts below for posterity, but do visit the site as the latter has two brief clips).

TL;DR - Joanna asked her old friend Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes if they had any shows coming up at which she could guest with some new material. They didn't but - as anyone would - set up a small date in Los Angeles, with an unannounced special guest and secret merchandise for sale only after JN had appeared. She did 5 new songs (including a 15-minuter about a canary in a coal-mine ... I'm praying it's not a cover of a Police song) and later performed Good Intentions Paving Company with the headline act.

Let's hope this is the prelude to a new album. Don't forget, she was just embarking on a solo acoustic tour (US only) just before CoViD-19 struck, so it's been a long eight years!


=================================================================

Joanna Newsom Plays First Show Since 2020 as Fleet Foxes’ Surprise Opener
Robin Pecknold said he spent months planning this show so Newsom could debut her new songs. “This is the greatest living songwriter we’re talking about.”
By Matthew Ismael Ruiz and Evan Minsker

March 23, 2023
Joanna Newsom joined Fleet Foxes as a surprise opener for their show at the Belasco in Los Angeles yesterday (March 22). It was her first live performance since 2020. After Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold introduced her—“Without further ado, I present the high priestess of acoustic music, Joanna Newsom”—she performed five new songs before returning to do “Good Intentions Paving Co.” with Fleet Foxes. In a statement to Pitchfork, Pecknold wrote about how the show came together:

Late last fall, Joanna asked me if we had any shows in Los Angeles coming up that she could drop in on as a surprise opener to test out some new songs. We didn’t have anything planned until August at the Hollywood Bowl with My Morning Jacket, but this is the greatest living songwriter we’re talking about, maybe the best musician since, like, J.S. Bach, so me and the FF team spent the last few months planning this for her.

The venue needed to be small enough that it would sell out right away as a Fleet Foxes–only show, regal enough to deserve a Joanna appearance, and allowing of us to be onsite for multiple days of both rehearsal and the construction of the elaborate flower arrangements surrounding the stage and venue. I came up with this “Spring Recital” conceit just to deflect attention from the “special guest” part, and I asked my dad and Daniel Rossen to be involved, giving it a kind of Last Waltz feeling, an impression that anyone might show up.

We had custom merchandise made, our collaborators the Westerlies made horn arrangements for Joanna off of voice memos, my brother filmed the event…. I am so lucky and grateful that the touring organization we’ve built was able to gracefully accommodate this request of hers and make it the best it could possibly be, something really special for the 1,200 devoted people who trusted us when buying tickets. Putting this show together was the honor of my lifetime! Thank you, Joanna!

Reddit user SleepingRedWolves recorded video of each song, which you can find on the linked page; alternatively, watch a pair of clips below.

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Pecknold also shared photos of himself with Newsom on Instagram and wrote, “No words, best show to ever happen. Thank you to everyone involved and hope we can do it again sometime. Those new songs were unbelievable!!!!!!!”

Fleet Foxes are touring in support of their 2020 album, Shore. Last year, they shared a new song called “A Sky Like I've Never Seen” and covered the Strokes’ “Under Control” with Blood Orange. Newsom’s last album was 2015’s Divers.

Read “Witnessing Joanna Newsom’s Surprise New Era” on the Pitch.



This article was originally published on Thursday, March 23, at 12:07 a.m. Eastern. It was last updated on March 23 at 11:55 p.m. Eastern.


================================================================
Joanna Newsom performs at the Belasco in Los Angeles on March 22 (Pooneh Ghana)
THE PITCH
Witnessing Joanna Newsom’s Surprise New Era
Eight years after the release of Divers, the singer-songwriter stunned a Los Angeles crowd with new songs that underscored just how much has changed in her life.
By Emma Madden

March 23, 2023
It’s been eight years since Joanna Newsom released an album. It’s long enough to change entirely—to become one or two or three different people. It’s long enough to see people in your life die and see new life born, which is familiar conceptual territory for Joanna Newsom. Her songs are like koans, full of fables and parables without conclusions. They’re lines of rich, blank time in which life and death cancel one another out. “Nor is there cause for grieving, nor is there cause for carrying on,” she sang on “Anecdotes,” the opener of 2015’s Divers. We have lived multiple lifetimes and died multiple deaths in the eight years since.

As a fan, eight years is long enough to surrender hope and come to terms with the idea of a musician’s retirement. It’s also long enough to go kind of batshit. During the drought, we assembled on the private Facebook page “Joanna Newsom Shitposting.” The community has moved through several meme cycles since Divers. In the Minions era, fans would photoshop the yellow creatures onto photos of Joanna. The Lana Del Rey phase kicked off when my friend Bret posted the Lust For Life art with the caption “sounds like Ys.” The page has most recently been in its trolling moon. Members of the group have concocted fake press releases, promising hyperpop albums that don’t exist. So last week, when rumor spread that Joanna Newsom would play a secret show in Los Angeles, I took it for horseplay.

In January, Pecknold’s band Fleet Foxes announced that they would play a “spring recital” with an unnamed special guest on March 22. I thought nothing of it. Then, the flowers. During the afternoon of March 22, I repeatedly refreshed Pecknold’s Instagram page as he posted more and more photos of band rehearsals with flowers decorating the stage; flowers that were spiked with violet light, that twisted around the stage like curlicues, that were identifiably Joanna’s aesthetic. My girlfriend and I hastily tried to get tickets. We got scammed, lost a bunch of money, and then, we bought tickets for double the original face value.

When we arrived at the venue that night, the merch was folded in half, partially obscuring a not-Fleet Foxes name. “Shirts go on sale at 9 p.m.,” read a sign. I asked the vendor why. “That’s when the special guest’s set will end,” they said. “Who do you want it to be?” Joanna Newsom, I said. They made a sort of grimace.

Joanna Newsom and Robin Pecknold at the Belasco in Los Angeles on March 22
Joanna Newsom and Robin Pecknold at the Belasco in Los Angeles on March 22 (Pooneh Ghana)
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At 8 p.m., the venue lights dimmed. Without warning, a stage curtain, lit up with a light blue wash, quickly fell to the floor, and revealed a large harp and piano. The crowd gasped, and a few of us screamed like we were John Purroy Mitchel falling from an airplane. Pecknold came to the stage. “Without further ado, I present the high priestess of acoustic music, Joanna Newsom,” he said.

Describing what happened next feels a little like trying to describe a coma or a trip to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. A grave and awed intensity muted the crowd. Stood there amongst it, I felt myself a node in a network of raw feeling, a little brainless plant simply reacting to the strange whirl of light and sound. As she began to play an unfamiliar melody, we came to what felt like a ground-shaking realization: Newsom was not only there to perform but to perform new material for the first time in eight years.

The five new songs were largely piano-based. Primarily known as a harpist, Newsom’s piano playing bordered on virtuosic. She moved about the instrument like it was made of train carriages, with each section representing a different voice and character. I thought of Randy Newman, Joni Mitchell, and other great American storytellers. She played a 15-minute song about a canary trapped in a coal mine. It was amazing.

In the past eight years, Newsom became a mother. Perhaps that’s why the songs she debuted felt as though they were spread on a bed of new life. A fear of death had once made Newsom choose her words carefully, preciously, fearfully. She attempted to capture huge concepts—life, death, gender, nature—in mathematically precise rhymes. It was a desperate, hubristic and beautifully futile attempt to ward away the inevitable.

Divers was placed on the brink of new life, which meant the death of a life turned old. The album functioned like a kind of death doula, offering up a peaceful resignation with the terror of death. These new songs, on the other hand, had all the safety of a mother comforting a child. In them, she pulled from a vast collection of personal experiences, details and moments, returning with a little girl to take care of. “I’m not alone, I have a daughter,” she sang.

Joanna Newsom and Robin Pecknold at the Belasco in Los Angeles on March 22
Joanna Newsom and Robin Pecknold at the Belasco in Los Angeles on March 22 (Pooneh Ghana)

[queenofnerds]

Oh the Air again and little hand are absolutely stunning

[milkisobel]

listening to "go long" made my day for weeks. Her voice divinely matured and i cross fingers for real new material album