My Horse Is My Car

It’s tempting, with a subtitle like that, to build a strained analogy between Spanish roads and the music of Joanna Newsom. But there would be no justice in the attempt. Spanish motorways are invariably straight, in places poorly maintained, with lumps and unkempt stretches that make the car rock disturbingly. None of these words and phrases could be used to describe her music. Progress might be made using the word through, simply because, as a necessity, Spanish roads traverse a landscape that inspires awe; mountains, rolling plains, flat plains, river gorges and expansive reservoirs. But even that is pushing it. Here’s a better analogy.

Listening to a Joanna Newsom album for the first time is like being thrown into a turbulent, fast flowing river. At first you don’t know whether up is down but you soon discover that you’re actually wearing breathing apparatus and the water is warm. Once the initial shock recedes, you look around to see unfamiliar currents, comforting structures, and amidst them, glimpses of beauty and wonder, unfamiliar creatures, and strange perceptions. There’s no need to swim, you’re carried along by the flow, borne safely through rapids and waterfalls to find yourself floating in a languid pool. Surfacing, you see the riverbank within touching distance, but rather than reaching out, you slide back below the surface and surrender to the river once more.

My journey lasted two days, starting in Santander, straight off the ferry, stopping the night in Salamanca, then driving all through the next day to reach my destination, Arcos de la Frontera, Queen of the White Villages. The first few miles were something of a shock. Driving on the wrong side of the road while being swept through a dizzying mix of two and three lane roads, taking various intersections, jostling with confident Spanish drivers. It was actually a relief when the traffic was brought to a standstill by a minor accident. Once through that, the congestion eased, the road all but emptied and I was left with near deserted motorways, gliding along at a comfortable 75 miles an hour.

Around me, the Spanish landscape was revealed. Through fine rain and drizzle, rocky and tree-covered mountains were revealed, the road snaking through valleys or tunnelling under impassable masses. Gradually, the mountains gave way to rolling, arid plains and, as if on cue, the clouds receded and the sun appeared, warming the car and testing the air conditioning. The temperature increased steadily, starting at a comfortable 16 degrees (Celsius), climbing to an impressive (at the tail-end of October) 27 degrees by the time I reached Arcos.

Whenever I was driving, playing on repeat, the car was awash with the sounds of Joanna’s latest album, Divers. Aficionados of her music, and there are many, will talk to you about her lyrics, the references, and influences that come together to illuminate the true poetry she writes. But when you’re listening in the car, it’s not the words and their meanings that hold sway, it’s the thrust of the music, the intricacies of the orchestration and the many vocal flourishes that, at times, explode from the speakers.

It’s become something of a cliché to discuss her work in terms of its idiosyncrasies; she plays a full-size harp and she’s prone to losing control of her voice. Well she does indeed play a harp and you can hear that shining forth all through the album, but at no time during eleven intense tracks, does she let her vocal cup spill over. What she does instead is something more profound and, at times, audibly disturbing.

More than any other performer I’m familiar with, she uses her voice as an instrument, utilising its operatic qualities and taking advantage of studio technology to add multiple vocal tracks, creating shifting harmonies that soar and glide across the audio sphere. At times it's reminiscent of the multiple layering Jimi Hendrix employed in his later work. Listen to "Night Bird Flying" and you might see the similarities, but remember that his instrument of choice was a guitar, Joanna Newsom uses her voice.

In common with her other aficionados, I have certain favourite moments, vocal sequences typically that create a strong emotional impact. To take examples from the last three tracks, we have the operatic flourish with which she expounds the word ‘You’ from the title, in "Pin Light Bent" she performs a slow vibrato effect layered over two takes, each perfectly timed, and in the last, epic rendering of "Time as a Symptom, "she manages to evoke a sense of absolute splendour and awe in the build up to her pronouncement of "The Joy of Life."

That last moment is, for me, the most important. Whether it was coincidence or one of life’s fine synchronicities, the last track with its vocal codas and various natural sounds faded out just as I was entering Arcos. Fortunate because Enid, my name for Google’s expressive driving companion, started to get extremely urgent in her efforts to guide me through the tight, winding streets of the place I hope to reside in for the next few months.

I couldn’t say how many times I heard the album play through, perhaps eight, maybe more than ten, but was never a strain and at no point was I tempted to switch to something different. The transition from the last track to the first is close to seamless, I believe by design, those closing codas, bird calls, and natural sounds changing subtly to introduce Joanna’s voice singing the first lines of Anecdotes:

Sending the first scouts overback from the place beyond the dawn:Horse bear your broken soldiereyes frozen wide at what went on

My car is my horse.