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15 years ago
I'm super jazzed for the upcoming Sufjan Stevens concert here, and in the meantime, I've been listening to his All Delighted People EP on super-loop for the last solid week or so. Here's a cut off the EP:
If you don't know his music, he's one of the indie scene's big maximalists, alongside folks like Owen Palette or Joanna Newsom, though there are plenty of differences among their styles as well. He's probably still best known and loved for his Illinois album.
More recently, he's been moving from the acoustic sounds of his piano/guitar/trumpet/banjo-based work on Illinois into a more electronic space, and his upcoming album, The Age of Adz, sounds like it's going to fall pretty squarely in that camp. This latest EP (which is an EP in name only, as it's over an hour long) seems to be a kind of transitional step between them, and it's really enjoyable.
I still love his old sound, and I'll always have an emotional attachment to Illinois, but it's fun to see where he's going next as well.
If you don't know his music, he's one of the indie scene's big maximalists, alongside folks like Owen Palette or Joanna Newsom, though there are plenty of differences among their styles as well. He's probably still best known and loved for his Illinois album.
More recently, he's been moving from the acoustic sounds of his piano/guitar/trumpet/banjo-based work on Illinois into a more electronic space, and his upcoming album, The Age of Adz, sounds like it's going to fall pretty squarely in that camp. This latest EP (which is an EP in name only, as it's over an hour long) seems to be a kind of transitional step between them, and it's really enjoyable.
I still love his old sound, and I'll always have an emotional attachment to Illinois, but it's fun to see where he's going next as well.
Seriously, though, here's an example of classic Sufjan banjo: For the Widows In Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti
And here's classic Sufjan trumpet: The Predatory Wasp Of the Palisades Is Out To Get Us!
Those are from 2003 and 2005, respectively, so you can place them in the context of his overall shift from soft acoustic to bigger and edgier sounds.
If that's not your bag, then at least you can enjoy his newer stuff!
It's pretty distinct from Michigan and Illinois, but excellent nonetheless.
I havn't heard this, oh man you lucky dog, going to this!!!!
The plan is to club Sufjan over the head after the show and drag him back to my cave <3
<_<
>_>
*plays on again on loop*
And Joanna Newsom <3.
And Owen Pallet.
Man, you like good music.
I mean, thank you!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run_Ra.....un_%28album%29
STRING REARRANGEMENT OF ENJOY YOUR RABBIT.
IT IS THE BEST THING.
also, All Delighted People is apparently a huge Paul Simon tribute??
He takes a number of lines from Simon's song, like "Hello darkness my old friend," "In restless dreams I walked alone," and "And the people bowed and prayed / to the neon god they made."
And thanks for the tip re: Rabbit! I'll have to check that out <3
Haven't you heard of the law of indie conservation?
The less people know of an indie artist, the better the music.
Anyone with any interest in alternative music who wasn't in a coma in 2005 heard the giant collective critical orgasm that followed Illinois' release ^_^
Plus telling furries hardly counts as alerting the mainstream ^_-
But some of his songs I can't relate to.
He needs to finish those albums about US states and come over here make an album about Belgium.
this is the first song i heard by this guy, i keep meaning to check him out, think i'll start with the older stuff though
And yes, he's totally got Beatles undertones. And like thatoneguy mentioned, the title track on this EP is a big flirty tribute to a Simon and Garfunkle track. He's got roots in the classics, for sure <3
Seven Swans came out in between the two state albums, but it's more pared-down and somber than both. It's also his most religious-imagery-heavy album, if that's a turn-on/off for you. That album is basically just him and a guitar/banjo.
i listen to mostly classical, so yeah it doesn't XD
i'm liking this tracked you linked to omari, i think his voice isn't resonating with me too well though, i don't know why i am so awful and picky with vocals!
It wasn't until
I think his voice is really warm! It's pretty high, and he does like to flip into falsetto territory, but as someone who also likes Bon Iver and the Antlers, a little falsetto ain't no thang to me.
Who do you like, vocals-wise? I'm curious ^_^
Not that that means you have to like it, of course <3 You're totally allowed to be picky -- I certainly am, too, when it comes to music ^_^
Glad you dig it in general, though!
Haha, that's awesome, dude. A boyfriend with good taste in music is a most enviable thing indeed <3
Enjoy the concert.
And yeah, the concert should be awesome! I'm stoked
It is easy to use big words and disconnect from the emotion that one is putting into the work. The question is which do you see yourself as? The danger one runs with the emotional way is a lack of control. You start pouring out all this emotion into the piece and you stop for a second and say "Wait a minute my paws are all covered with heart blood" and you look at what is in front of you and its either incredibly beautiful or ugly or unrecognizable. What do you do then?
I don't think that a story has to be tragic to be beautiful, although tragedy is certainly one kind of beauty. I think that any sort of emotional truth can be beautiful -- when we read (or hear, or see, etc.) a story that presents a character or experience that we can recognize and understand in terms of our own selves and experiences, I think that's appealing. I don't mean a literal or descriptive truth in the non-fiction sense (hell, I draw animal-people), so much as something that feels real or believable on a gut level, given the context.
That's why in my art I like focusing on the emotions of a scene. Given the characters and given the situation, what would they be feeling? That sort of thing. It's also important to me that the piece be "pretty" and technically sound (which is the big vocab equivalent in the case of visual art), but at the end of the day, the pieces I'm most happy with are the ones that manage to be pretty [i]as well as[i] portraying some kind of convincing moment in time.
I don't like to lose control when I'm creating, so I can get pretty tight with stuff, but if there's no emotion to the piece, all the technical skill in the world isn't going to make it interesting. That said, I don't do much/any autobiographical work, so the emotions that I'm putting into pieces aren't my personal emotions. It's not like I was going through a breakup when I painted the two recent breakup pictures, etc. I'm just taking on the role of storyteller, coming up with characters and a premise, and letting them play out the scene.
Substance is the emotion, the feeling, the vibe, the expierence, the soul of what we are pouring into our work, the spirit of the piece. It is great to create pretty work but we also must be able look at the harsher emotion as well. Rothko comes to mind with this thought. This idea that while art can and should be beautiful it must also confront the viewer. To create work that instills comfort is great, but go too much on the beauty side you wind up being Thomas kincaid.
Personally I place importance on the raw power of a piece, to overwhelm the viewer and hit them over the head, but I am slowly learning that a well placed potent stroke is more effective than aforementioned clubbing. I like to lose control sometimes. It is intense, ectastic, overwhelming.
Sometimes I like to be in control. Spend a hour working on a line, finding that perfect curve that expresses the form that I am going for. But then we get that confrontation of form and substance. Its a great conflict, that tension in art of me saying what I need to, versus me phrasing it in a way that can be felt. The goal of my art is to have love in my work. To have the heavens be rent and grace my canvas.
We as artists can express that which we have expierenced intimately, that being said, the goal is to expierence love intimately then translate. Perhaps not merely to translate but to also perpetuate.
Form, substance, composition, color, these are all tools to express that truth that as an artist I Believe we are called not to capture but exhibit in our lives and our works. If our lives do not encompass that particular virtue then I believe our art becomes empty. Any gift done without love is empty, foolish and self seeking. All you need, all you ever need, is real honest caring.
I listen to a fairly broad variety of stuff, so it's still possible there's some overlap, but it is fun to see how aesthetics in one department (like visual art) line up with those in another (like music!).
I personally feel like my art is generally pretty Sufjan-y, if I can adjective him? What sort of music would you associate it with, out of curiosity?
Your stuff feels proggy to me(?). With maybe a pinch of house thrown in? Fun times ^_^