Joanna Newsom: The Milk-Eyed Mender [DRAG CITY]

Why you'll love it

This Drag City LP comes with an LP-sized lyric sheet and Emily Prince's embroidered cover art. Pitchfork named it the 47th greatest album of the 2000s, and it has sold more than 200,000 copies in the US.

This edition

• LP-sized lyric sheet
• Embroidered cover art by Emily Prince

About the album

Not many debut albums lead with a concert harp. Joanna Newsom's does, a Lyon & Healy style 15, joined by Wurlitzer, harpsichord and piano, and the combination of that instrument with her singular, birdlike voice made The Milk-Eyed Mender one of the most distinctive records of its decade. The embroidered cover, stitched by Emily Prince and photographed by Alissa Anderson, looks as handmade as the music sounds, and it is just as lovely at twelve inches. Sarah Jarosz later covered "The Book of Right-On" too.

Noah Georgeson, her bandmate in San Francisco's The Pleased, produced and recorded it and added guitar to a couple of tracks. Newsom wrote every song except "Three Little Babes," an Appalachian song from the repertoire of Texas Gladden. "Sprout and the Bean" and "Peach, Plum, Pear" both made Pitchfork's best songs of the 2000s, Bombay Bicycle Club covered "Swansea," and The Roots built "Right On" around "The Book of Right-On."

She thanks touring partners Will Oldham, Devendra Banhart and Vetiver in the notes, which is about as close as indie folk gets to a royal warrant.

Also at Kops: more Joanna Newsom on vinyl · browse Singer-Songwriter

Tracklist

Listen

On Drag City (cat# DC263), the 2004 album.