Round these parts there’s a feeling (generated mostly, it must be admitted, from my desk) that Joanna Newsom’s second album, “Ys”, is one of the very best albums released this decade. It was with immense pleasure, then, that we discovered Newsom would be playing a special Sunday lunchtime set at Latitude.
Newsom will take to the Obelisk Arena stage at midday (she’s playing London’s Somerset House that same evening, July 20), and should provide a dreamily restorative start to the last day of Latitude. For those who haven’t experienced Newsom live before, her shows are engrossing spectacles of passion and virtuosity, as her vivid poetics and expressive harp playing propel her band through epic, extraordinary songs.
Fingers will bleed, hearts may break, and obsessive fans will be thrilled to know that Newsom has been playing a bunch of new songs at some recent Australian dates. It’s hard to imagine a better place to hear them for the first time than the verdant, magical surrounds of Henham Park.