Joanna Newsom August 4, 2010

Have you ever seen that movie The Village? Yeah, that’s how Joanna Newsom was discovered. She came out of a dark, impenetrable forest and was so clearly from another century, it was just spooky. Fortunately for all of us, this initial impression turned out to be a complete misunderstanding! Our Joanna is clearly from the 20th century, and today, just like the rest of us, she lives in the 21st.

Fact is, the newness of Joanna’s sound makes us tremble violent-like when we think back – gulp – eight whole years to when it all began. Back then, Joanna was playing keyboards with an SF group and writing songs on the harp more or less as an exercise, taping them just to remember how she’d put them together. One thing led to another and geez, she ended up selling a million(-ish) records!