In my imagination, Joanna Newsom lives in an alpine forest eating honey and carving sonnets into tree trunks.

And so this album comes as a shock. Lyrically, Newsom’s battered heart is worn unflinchingly on her sleeve, and you discover that she is human - not elf - after all. She gets drunk, lonely, and imagines a "room gilded with the golden teeth of the women who loved you" and "a Bloody Mary seen in the mirror". The most innocent of images is tinged with a darkness that slopes just out of view.

Francesconi’s orchestration splices sparseness and intricacy – sneaking in a piano and quick scribble of strings in ‘Easy’ before making way for Newsom’s vulnerable suggestion of being ‘easy to keep’.

But ‘Baby Birch’ is the star, so much so that ‘On A Good Day’, a perfectly good song, sounds as mundane as mud after this melancholy lullaby has broken your heart. A week is not enough time to absorb this album, nor would I want it to be.

Support Varsity

Varsity is the independent newspaper for the University of Cambridge, established in its current form in 1947. In order to maintain our editorial independence, our print newspaper and news website receives no funding from the University of Cambridge or its constituent Colleges.

We are therefore almost entirely reliant on advertising for funding and we expect to have a tough few months and years ahead.

In spite of this situation, we are going to look at inventive ways to look at serving our readership with digital content and of course in print too!

Therefore we are asking our readers, if they wish, to make a donation from as little as £1, to help with our running costs. Many thanks, we hope you can help!