Joanna Newsom's latest offering to the indie-folk world comes in the form of Sapokanikan - five minutes of solemn baroque pop splendor. A continual piano trill accompanying Newsom's distinctive voice gradually builds to a subtle crescendo full of muted pipes and stirring string couplets, and as Joanna's wailing vocals reach higher it begins to sound like a tiny, scaled down opera, scored by a pint sized orchestra of talented Lilliputian virtuosos.(Honestly this is the best possible way I can describe the sound of this track)
The beautiful instrumentation is also combined with intelligent lyricism packed full of scholarly, historical and geographical references - there are enough obscure literary shout-outs here to leave one annotating each line for days. This makes for an incredibly satisfying listen.
There is no doubt that this is an excellent song, and I recommend you get a hold of it in hard copy - especially if you are a fan of similar artists such as Beirut or Sufjan Stevens.
Jack McGlone
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