In just two albums, folk princess Joanna Newsom has established herself as one of the most intriguing musical artists to emerge this century. Though some find her voice cloying, there's no question that she has excellent control over it, and she is a classically trained pedal harp virtuoso who also plays beautiful piano. Her gifts as a performer would be enough to build a career on, but it is her songwriting, both musically and lyrically, that puts her at least head and often shoulders above her singer/songwriter contemporaries. Her debut The Milk-Eyed Mender was an array of eleven supernaturally catchy originals (and a folk standard) that evoked happpiness, heartbreak and everything in between over arrangements so spare and effective they surely made Spoon's minimalist main man Britt Daniels green with envy. Follow-up Ys was, by contrast, an epic undertaking, a cycle of five esoteric sagas that showcased unconventional structures, a lyric sheet intricate and intimate enough to stand alone as a poetry chapbook, and understated orchestral arrangements by Brian Wilson cohort Van Dyke Parks.

If Ys left any doubts that Newsom is ambitious, behold Have One On Me, which arrives via Drag City February 23 in the form of a TRIPLE album in a mystifyingly minimal jacket. Details are being guarded closely, but in an as-yet-unaired radio interview Newsom purportedly "reckons it's a cross between her first and second albums," and rapt attendees of recent concerts confirm the varied scope of the new material. Another important detail is the maturation of Newsom's voice, which was heretofore her most divisive attribute but "has mellowed, sounding more conventionally pretty," reports The Guardian. This development should earn her new fans among the timbre-sensitive who may have passed on her earlier work. We, however, have been on board for a while and have nothing left to do but wait. Recommended.

Drag City

Joanna Newsom - '81 (From Have One On Me)