I'm still digesting my reaction to Ys. It's a powerful album to be sure. But the length of songs and the ambitiousness of the material make it hard to listen to in a casual way. You have to sit down and listen to it, doing nothing else. 'Emily' is amazing to me because it's innovation seems to be entirely musical, or at least more embedded in the music than most rock/pop, which is marketwise, if that matters, still where one situates Joanna Newsom. Or at least its where her albums would be in a record store. The innovation in alot of rock/pop now is found in playing with the codification of certain gestures. In a way, that's what all 'innovative' rock/pop relies on. Skewing the gestures of the pop song, in the format of a pop song. If there's any exception it might be Pet Sounds. Smile, if it had been made by the Beach Boys. Ys also reminds me of Astral Weeks, in its winding structures and lyrical density. Tho where Astral Weeks was influenced by jazz, Ys seems more indebted to modern classical music.