By Jason Gross

If anything, folkie singer/harpist Joanna Newsom's recent live shows with strings answer the question of whether her new music (featuring 10-15 minute songs) is ambitious or just excessive. It's definitely the former, though you don't wanna get there a little late unless you wanna wait a quarter-hour to be seated between songs (like I did).

Drawing a much younger than usual crowd to BAM for two sold out shows, she hitched up with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra and appropriately looked like a soloist as she squatted on a piano bench (decked out in a black dress) to play next to the conductor, with her usual trio group near the front with her. Even with the swelling strings around her, that sweet quirky voice (a little Joni Mitchell there) came through clearly on the longish suites she crafted for her last album, 2006's Ys. Sure enough, she played the whole album, start to finish, for the first hour and a quarter of the show: if old indie bands can do shows based on their own classic albums, why can't she push her latest one as a complete piece?

By the second song ("Monkey & Bear"), it was hard not to get pulled into Newsom's arty fairytales, which sound like they could make almost make it into a good Disney movie (not necessarily a bad thing). Here, you really could appreciate that this was a fascinating way for her to explore a range of timbres and emotions in the space of these extended songs. Even if you couldn't always follow the stories (or logic), there were always little things to grab you like the excited backing vocals, sweeping strings and bluesy ending on "M&B" or her soaring solo parts on "Only Skin" or the chanted howls on "Cosmia." At the end of this first part, she took a well-earned standing ovation.

Twenty minutes later, with the orchestra's seats and stands remaining behind, she reappeared with her trio: violinist/vocalist Lila Sklar, barefoot drummer Neal Morgan and tamboura/banjo player Ryan Francesconi. Here, Newsom was noticeably more nervous, joking between songs and gently needling herself. Though it got a little coy after a while, she drew some hearty applause when she revealed that Morgan had been canvassing for Barack Obama (remember, this was a younger crowd).

Otherwise, for the nine song, 45-minute set, she mostly went through numbers from her first album, 2004's The Milk-Eyed Mender. Even after her orchestral triumph, the older numbers still retained their quirky charms as the barer settings work best for the (relatively) miniature songs. Still, you could still hear part of her later ambitions in the lively adventure "Inflammatory Wit." Towards the end, she upped the ante with an excited emotional take on "Peach, Plum and Pear" (also featuring nice interplay with Francesconi) and the nostalgic send-off "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie."

The most impressive tunes, though, were two untitled new ones she tried out for the evening. The first was a gentle, sweet song about a spring where she insisted on "the right to repeat my same mistakes" (how's that for being both brave and self-effacing?). The second one, which she performed alone, was a touching number about friends and their changes, with gorgeous, captivating lines like "if you're sad or blue, I've prepared a small song for you." It's simply one of the strongest songs she's written so far.

Though her encore totaled one song with banjo player Kevin Barker ("Same Old Man," a traditional tune culled from a record by fellow iconoclast Karen Dalton), she'd said and done plenty in the previous two-hours-plus. More importantly, her new material signals that her best days may still be ahead of her.

[Photo Credit: Rahav Sagev]