The bra commercial, the urban mom video cameo, popping up as an anonymous model on a street-style blog, and now a photo for Giorgio Armani’s United Artist campaign for W mag: Joanna Newsom’s in the midst of a clear shift from the forests to the fashion set. So it’s only fitting that tidbits about a long awaited Ys followup are bubbling up not from the bowels of the blogosphere but from mags trading in haute coture. Aside from the occasional new song, Newsom’s been mum on developments concerning her next album, but twentyfourbit points to a quote from a Vogue post on the opening of high fashion boutique Opening Ceremony in Tokyo, placing Joanna and Samberg at the afterparty and starting the trail of clues:

Yoko Ono and son Sean Lennon held court by the deejay booth while Joanna Newsom (in town recording her new album) chatted with her boyfriend, SNL’s Andy Samberg.

(Joanna and Andy love to afterparty — they were at the Dirty Projectors’ post-Bowery shindig last night, too). So Newsom was in Tokyo in August … why so far east? Well, that’s where Ys co-conspirator Jim O’Rourke is living these days.

And if you read the blurb accompanying the aforementioned W spread:

“Her debut album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, was released in 2004 and was followed by Ys (2006). She recently finished work on a new album.”

Can’t wait.

As for Joanna the model … the girl’s a pro. (Start at 1:25…)