Disc review | Indie star Sufjan Stevens made the most bare album of his career, with love as the main theme

Folk, indie / album

Sufjan Stevens: Javelin. Asthmatic Kitty.

★★★★

American songwriter Sufjan Stevens became the unmissable star of the indie world in 2005 Illinois-album, but in 2017 he was discovered by others as well. Stevens wrote Luca Guadagnino to a hit movie Call Me by Your Name two pieces. Of them Mysteries of Love received an Oscar nomination and has been streamed over 400 million times on Spotify.

The film undoubtedly directed many new listeners, especially younger listeners, to Stevens’ treasure chest-like production. The traditional gateway theory to indie still works; At the beginning of the 2000s, the previous generation found bands from TV series like OC’s through.

Name Mysteries of Love would become the umbrella title for almost all of Stevens’ songwriting music. From year to year, he has sung about love, mutual love between people and the divine. The songwriter’s music must be spoken of as a distinction from his ballet compositions, ambient and other experimental works. To records that even his fans ignore as curiosities and second-rate.

Javelin-album was marketed specifically as a songwriter’s album, the first of its kind since 2015 of Carrie & Lowell. It pulls together the strings of Stevens’ career so far. To put it bluntly Javelin is built hermetically on top of Stevens’ previous musical universe.

Throughout the album, the compositions and arrangements seem to refer to music that Stevens has already made.

Opening track Goodbye Evergreen ignites into a pumping harmony factory as if it had revolutionized it once upon a time Age of Adz – album (2010) title track. by Everything That Rises typing brings to mind Illinois– disk Casimir Pulaski Day. Eight minutes Shit Talk culminating in the same mantra-like polyphony as so many of Stevens’s bolder songs such as America (2020) or I Want to Be Well (2010).

From the closing cover of the album, Neil Young’s Harvest– record’s dramatic baroque number There’s a Worldit also sounds completely Stevens, so much has he accompanied himself with exactly the same minor chords.

From Javelin finds all the jamming elements characteristic of Stevens’ indie era, and it’s easy to consider it a boring record as well. Especially if you are used to listening to his music as lavishly arranged ear candy.

However, Stevens rose to stardom specifically as a folk singer, and Javelin is first and foremost a folk record. The heart of its songs is in their lyrics, which are full of drops of light.

Will Anybody Ever Love Me?one of the finest songs of Stevens’ career, could be for its title Morrissey-parody, but instead of self-irony, it is driven by hope. Another peak moment So You Are Tired immerse in comfort. But the greatest is love, all the time, in all its impossible mystery.