Joanna Newsom Divers (2 Lp's)

If music is a time machine, able to transport listeners to different places and eras as well as deep into memories, then Joanna Newsom steers Divers as deftly as Jules Verne. She flits to and from 18th century chamber music, 19th century American folk music, '70s singer/songwriter pop, and other sounds and eras with the lightness of a bird, one of the main motifs of her fourth full-length. Her on-the-wing approach is a perfect fit for Divers' themes: Newsom explores "the question of what's available to us as part of the human experience that isn't subject to the sovereignty of time," as she described it in a Rolling Stone interview. It's a huge subject, and even though she worked with several different arrangers -- including Dirty Projectors' David Longstreth and Nico Muhly -- she crystallizes Have One on Me's triple-album ambition into 11 urgent songs that still allow her plenty of variety. "Leaving the City," with its linear beat and electric guitar, is the closest she's come to an a