¤ milky moon ¤

The Guardian:

NME:

NYTimes: h

The New Yorker:

The Quietus:

Entertainment Weekly:

Rolling Stone:

Drowned In Sound:

Thank you!

Flavorwire:

Here is a German one - interesting insofar as it cites Joanna talking about the tradition of the "liederkreis" (song cycle?) in German Romantic music (Schubert, Schuhmann) in relation to "Divers". I haven't read about that connection anywhere else.

Intro

Oh, that is interesting, on the Unforumzed Tori Amos forum they were mentioning that it's actually a song cycle. Tori did her own song cycle Night of Hunters for Deutsche Grammophon a few years back, which was heavily influenced by Schubert.

Frau Neusam? Nice that the article starts with a rhyming section. I have yet to read the rest, there is so much information, it's hard to keep up with it!

Vogue:

So, that's her brother on drums, on tour with her. I love what he does on the album, so I'm fine with that!

A.V. Club review:

How come she gets Johanna Neusam, but there's no similar Dewender Bannhardt or KokoRosig?

The German link that was posted is actually more an interview than a review. Up until now I posted interviews in the "Found on the net" section of the main Right-On forum. And there are some reviews on there as well. Would it be a good idea to make a separate Interview section in the Divers forum or combine it and call this one Reviews and Interviews? And copy the links/texts in "Found on the net" concerning Divers on here?

Audio interview!:

LA Times:

Let's just call this one Reviews and Interviews!

I didn't know how to change the title of this thread, so I made a separate one for interviews. Perhaps you can combine them?

Done! Didn't realise that not everyone could edit the subject line.

Liberation (in French): http://next.liberation.fr/culture-next/ ... rs_1392621

I've only just started on these reviews, beginning with the Guardian one posted by Under a CPell on 23rd, and a few lines in I came across references to Kate Bush's "hem of anorak". I don't believe that the term translates over the pond, so for those who don't know, may I offer the following:
An anorak, literally, means a certain kind of winter coat, usually a dull blue or green colour, and with artificial fur trim, most distinctly around the edge of the hood. The word is derived from Inuit, so it surprises me that it's commonplace in the UK, but less so in North America.
The word 'anorak' has also come to mean a certain kind of obsessed person. I suspect it derives from train spotting (a hobby which was once extremely popular in the UK, but again I don't think it ever gained much of a foothold in the US or Canada). Almost exclusively a male pastime, devotees would gather on railway bridgges, platforms, or thunting yards, to jot down the numbers of all the locomotives they saw. And quite often, they would be wearing aforementioned coats. Trainspotting has been on the decline since the end of the age of steam, but the term has affixed itself to other kinds of obsession, not limited to kinds like trainspotting, where the end result is merely a list of numbers, of no interest to anyone but the compiler (and often, these numbers wouild be in a pre-printed booklet in which the spotter had only to tick the ones he'd seen). Now, anything that lends itself to record-keeping, or to close inspection, or to faintly obsessive behaviour, or is an essentially solitary pursuit, can give rise to 'anoraks'. It still refers largely to males. The area in which I've encountered it most is in sports record keeping. Although originally a derisive term, it is gradually being 'claimed' by the anoraks themselves: I once described myself as the 'winner of this year's 'Golden Anorak' for something or another...
Just in case anyone was wondering!

AllMusic Review by Heather Phares



If music is a time machine, able to transport listeners to different places and eras as well as deep into memories, then Joanna Newsom steers Divers as deftly as Jules Verne. She flits to and from 18th century chamber music, 19th century American folk music, '70s singer/songwriter pop, and other sounds and eras with the lightness of a bird, one of the main motifs of her fourth full-length. Her on-the-wing approach is a perfect fit for Divers' themes: Newsom explores "the question of what's available to us as part of the human experience that isn't subject to the sovereignty of time," as she described it in a Rolling Stone interview. It's a huge subject, and even though she worked with several different arrangers -- including Dirty Projectors' David Longstreth and Nico Muhly -- she crystallizes Have One on Me's triple-album ambition into 11 urgent songs that still allow her plenty of variety. "Leaving the City," with its linear beat and electric guitar, is the closest she's come to an actual rock song; "You Will Not Take My Heart Alive" could pass for medieval music, despite its mention of "capillaries glowing with cars." While Divers is musically dense, it may be even more packed with ideas and vivid imagery; its lyrics sheet reads like a libretto (and is a necessary reference while listening). The bird calls that bookend the album -- and the way its final word ("trans-") flows into its first ("sending") -- hint at the album's looping, eternal yet fleeting nature, while "Anecdotes" introduces how each track feels like a microcosm (or parallel universe) dealing with war, love, and loss in slightly different ways. "Waltz of the 101st Lightborne," in which time-traveling soldiers end up fighting their own ghosts, highlights Divers' sci-fi undercurrent, which is all the more intriguing paired with its largely acoustic sounds. Newsom combines these contrasts between theatricality and intimacy, and city and country, splendidly on "Sapokanikan," named for the Native American settlement located where Greenwich Village stands. As she layers the ghosts and memories of old Dutch masters, potter's fields, Tammany Hall, and allusions to Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ozymandias, the music nods to ragtime and other vintage American styles; it could be overwhelming if she didn't return to the simple, poignant refrain: "Do you love me? Will you remember?" Indeed, despite its literacy and embellishments, Newsom's music is never just an academic exercise. The album's emotional power grows as it unfolds: "Divers" itself reaches deep, bringing the album's longing to the surface. "A Pin-Light Bent" finds Newsom accepting that time is indeed finite with a quiet, riveting intensity, building to the majestic finale "Time, As a Symptom," where the personal, historical, and cosmic experiences of time she's pondered seem to unite as she realizes, "Time is just a symptom of love." Newsom can make her audience work almost as hard as she does, but the rewards are worth it: Dazzling, profound, and affecting, Divers' explorations of time only grow richer the more time listeners spend with them.

Thanks for the explanation of "anorak", Steve. I knew what it means, but not that it had its origins in trainspotting!

It took me a while to read the French interview, but I thought it was very interesting. Imagine having an almost life-size Joanna tattoo all over your body! When the "fée <<divers>>" was asked about that diverting fact her reply was very funny!