Friday 8 October 2010

Age Of The Odd

Sufjan Stevens comes from a weird place. Spiritually weird place. He’s one of those artists who, even if hearing for the first time, are able to send instant chills down your spine and the sheer memory of their songs (a string here, one lingering vocal there) gives you goosebumps. With one album, Illinois, that can be considered a symbol of US indie and a series of Christmas installments, Sufjan is the kind of man who one could expect just about anything from. The fact that he was said to go full Digital Ash In The Digital Urn on us with his newest album was something like a new colourful ball added to the collection.

The Age of Adz aka the latest release is still strange for an electronica album because, at first, it doesn’t strike you as a ‘very electronic’ album. And by “at first”, I mean the opener Futile Devices. Title-aside, this two-minutes plus is nothing but a haunting string wonder and probably the only electronic thing about it is the fact that electricity was involved in the recording process. Not that this would be a bad thing.

So very much greater is the surprise when the rest of the album turns out to be a menacing yet heartwarming Flaming Lips-gone-rogue-after-too-much-pink-robot-love trip. Mind you, it’s still not what your Regular John calls electronica (but he has never spoken to the Regular John, has he?) and it still manages to capture the very essence of Sufjan’s musical persona (the ‘a string here, a lingering vocal there’ mentioned before). While on the surface it feels like an entire army of robots is marching to war, there’s an underlying layer made out of the same material the like of Chicago was.

Sufjan also does a wonderful thing. He creates a schizoid world inside each track. Sure, Age of Adz starts like a batshit crazy combination of random sounds, but it morphs into a dream-like sequence, soft echo-y vocals barely touching the surface of the instrumental, trumpets, strings and a gentle crescendo guiding the listener to a whole new dimension. Yes, the bleeps and scratches that open up I Walked are the ones that stick in your mind but this is merely the packaging: the gentle orchestral arrangements and the choir turn the song into a doe-eyed experience.

It is true that there are moments when bringing together the piano and church-like feel of Now That I’m Older and the 80s game-boy synth of Get Real Get Right, the slow-motion water-y loops of Bad Communication and the grand choir of All For Myself seems like patchwork. But on a closer look, it is clear that they send over the same message: that dream world is ever present, those chills never cease to go down and up your spine and Sufjan hits the spot just right. He doesn’t make just music, he create a fantasy world that, as strange as it might seem, turns quickly into familiar land.

What’s even more endearing is that he doesn’t want to play with you or mislead you. For with each step one tales closer to the last track, an emotional 25 minutes blend of bluesy wailing guitars, echoes, marching drums, loops, bubbly twee-pop and lines like “But all I want is the perfect love”, it is clear that Sufjan’s sheer purpose when adding abrasive electronica sounds to his music was to enhance every emotion and add a peculiar depth to the lyrics. We are not here to offer predictions as to what The Age of Adz will be for US indie in 5 years time. But we are here to enjoy one of the strangest and warmest releases this year.

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