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CMU Approved
Approved: Joanna Newsom – Look And Despair
By Aly Barchi | Published on Wednesday 17 October 2012
Joanna Newsom was guest of honour at San Francisco’s Treasure Island Music Festival this past Sunday, playing a set that most notably featured the first airing of tentatively-titled new track ‘Look And Despair’.
As mythical and rich in strange citations as anything on the Carolina harpist’s lauded ‘Have One On Me’, it has that 2010 LP’s same bright, pliable quality, lighting between arcane folk parables and bluesier phrasings as only a Newsom original can. It’s bright to the ear, but less so lyric-wise, and sighs to a close with its gaze on dark cities, forlorn “tributes”, and the sad passage of time.
Saying that, it’s still very beautiful, and you can hear it now above an absolutely hushed Treasure Island crowd:
