Sufjan Stevens

So, as catastrophic as it may seem, i only just recently got off my lazy ass and bought Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens. I love sufjan, and I knew that this was a quintisential album to own, i just didn understand how much. I owned every other album, that he has released (including Enjoy Your Rabbit, though its not in my iTunes).

He is my favorite artist and is absoutly amazing, and i truly think he can do no wrong. Even with all this, still didnt get off my ass to buy Seven Swans, just because it couldnt buy it off of iTunes.
Well, i finally went to a record store about a few days back, and I bought Seven Swans.

And well, all i have to say is, well
im speachless.
I can t describe how incredibly amazingly amazing this album is. by FAR this is my favorite sufjan album.

I love his slower more just him and his guitar/banjo type songs, like Casimir Pulaski Day, John Wayne Gacy Jr, Romulus, The Mistress Withc from Mclure, or Sister Winter. And this album is just full of those. I really just cant get enough of this album.

Specifically I love The Dress Looks Nice On You . It just gives me hope, about life, and about a certain someone. I just have it looping on my iTunes.

The picking pattern makes me just happy, reminds me of Romulus a bit, just the sound of it (i know romulus is strum, not picked). The keyboards add the perfect breakdown to the song, and just ahhh, i love it.
I need to get some sleep.

After a really downer weekend, this week is lookin up. Theres alot of work ahead of me, but god damit, i can do it.
20.

Joy Joy Joy (bonus track) 21. You Are the Rake (bonus track)
A Sun Came, Sufjan Steven s debut album for Asthmatic Kitty Records, incorporates, in his words, traditional pop music, medieval instrumentation with Middle Eastern inflections, tape loops, digital samples, literary vocals, manic percussion, woodwinds, sitar, amp distortion and Arabic chants.
According to Toronto s Now weekly, he weaves together literary references, from Greek mythology to American Transcendentalism, then combines his tales with his Captain Beefheart and Sonic Youth influenced compositions.

I picked up this CD after falling in love with Greetings from Michigan and found it to be a completely different, and quite interesting, recording. With a slightly more rock vibe than some of Sufjan s later CDs, A Sun Came! paints with a broad palate of musical textures; several of the songs can easily stand alone as mini-epics (esp.

We Are What You Say and A Winner Needs A Wand ). Being Sufjan s first CD, he especially deserves a lot of credit for his eclectic arrangements and instrumentation.
On a side note, I noticed an occasional pre-Mellow Gold Beck feel on some of the songs such as Demetrius and Super Sexy Woman, largely due to the scratchy, atonal guitars and falsetto harmonies.

Additionally, A Sun Came! also features short snippets of strange dialogue between songs and a couple noise excursions ( Rice Pudding Satan s Saxophones ) akin to some of Beck s work before cleaning up his act. As a result, the album is a push-and-pull between astounding creative originality and somewhat derivative noise experiments.

Overall, it is definably essential listening for fans of Sufjan and I d also recommend fans of Beck s early work to check it out
Proving to be ultra ambitious ever since day one as far as album releasing was concerned, Steven s low-fi massive debut will be a treat for any fan, but for first timers should be avoided in favor of his newer releases. Mixing his folk roots with early alternative, electronic and world music, anyone listening to Sufjan, would at least take notice; if not necessarily start the celebration just yet. The eclectic songwriter is as unhinged as ever, sometimes wiping distorted chaos into whispered ballad with the ease of a pro, you could already see the vast production intuition amongst the youthful vibe.

Although many of these songs do seem adolescent when compared to his further releases, one must at least acknowledge that this is some of the most intelligent adolescent instrumentation that someone so young, yet so open to play, could produce in our sad market.
There s a reason why some people throw their lives into Indie music it s because mainstream music tends to offer very few new ideas. Soon, one becomes enraptured in the lush history of bands like Pavement, the Flaming Lips, and even more obscure acts like Oval and nostalgic lost acts like the Flying Machine.

Yet, then comes across one artist that just throws everything into perspective all over again.
In the course of 4 short albums, he s proven that he is a new undaunted master of folk music, but transcends convention time and time again. While Michigan and Seven Swans are both albums of lush, sweet beauty (and depression as well, to be fair), nothing comes to match his powerful, dirty, experimental yet still resoundingly sound debut album, A Sun Came.

He throws in childish voice-altered interludes here and there (which actually BLATANTLY RECALL those on Beck s Stereopathic Soul Manure LP), adding to the odd whimsy of the album. Yes, he does add some blatant throwaway tracks ( Satan s Saxophones and Rice Pudding ), which are just experimental instrumental noodling. The interludes aren t all that bad they use absurdist humour to break up the dramatic flow and serve as well-placed restart buttons for the listener.

Because sometimes they re needed simply because you are overwhelmed by the music. Layers upon layers of acoustic guitars, woodwinds, panpipes, and countless other instruments are mixed together in a startling array of melody. Best example of this is A Winner Needs a Wand pianos lead to a dark acoustic melody, which in turn leads to flutes and pipes blaring in during the chorus, a stream of voices near the climax and a near heavy-metal guitar outro and it all makes sense.

The sweet lost tape sound of Happy Birthday proves to be almost heartbreaking each time you listen. The mostly instrumental Wordsmith s Ridge could easily be used for the emotional climax of some unmade film, and the blissfully irrelevant and stupidly fun Super Sexy Woman shows that it s not full-on seriousness all the time.
Sufjan gets most interesting when he experiments within the confines of conventional melody.

As a matter of fact, Demetrius and The Oracle Said Wander sound almost EXACTLY like Pavement B-sides. The distorted vocals and propulsive drums of Jason create a haunting effect. And, best of all, the song that sounds like NOTHING else on the album (though only available on the re-release) is a little ditty called Joy!

Joy! Joy! it s a melodious electro-stomp of a number that s as excitable and state-of-the-art as any dance song out there but still bounded in Sufjan s simple vocals and human warmth.

All of this goes before mentioning his lyrics, which go from absurd to profoundly meaningful in a heartbeat. If you need further proof of his lyrical brilliance, simply listen to Rake.
Even with the few failed experiments, the seemingly inappropriate humour, and attempts to jump all over the place, this album is in a class by itself it s a powerful, haunting, infinitely repeatable album that reveals more with each listen.

It may be a bit inaccessible at first, but, given time, this can grow to be an all-time favourite.
For someone like me, music plays what can be called an important role in my life. This isn t because I m a musician, or because I m a complex robot from the future designed by NASA to run on a certain input of musical vibrations into a data-port in the main control panel in my back each day, or anything like that.

In fact, I m not a robot at all :-\. Uh
Anyway, here we go. My top-list for 2006.

Of course you know that there s way too much good stuff each year for everything to make it onto a top-list like this so keep in mind that I m just focusing on the albums that really grabbed me shook me .. went through my pockets .

took all my possessions, pummeled me mercilessly abandoned me in some kind of ditch and left me there to die choking on my own bloody, pulpy musical enjoyment. So ..

...

...

yeah. Ahem. Here goes.

(Oh, this was going to include a lot more than 10 albums, but in a fit of apathy and despair, I m just posting about these. There are like 40 other albums that I was considering..

and that I wanted people to know that I listened to and enjoyed but I just don t really even care anymore.. haha I m just not motivated.

...

...

..So yeah, I guess music isn t actually that important to me after all.

)
10. Rocky Votolato Makers
What? Rocky Votolato used to be all punk and emo?

No way. You wouldn t tell from this album. Well, unless you read the lyrics but still, Makers has a beautiful folk feel to it.

It s one of those albums where every song is a great listen I don t have to sit through any mediocre tracks, waiting for a good one to show up and that s pretty important to me. Apparently Rocky put a lot of effort into this album both musically and lyrically, and it really shows. It s just got an amazing sound to it, in part due to the occasional harmonica, since harmonicas are so freaking awesome.

9. Guster Ganging Up on the Sun
I know most people would disagree with me, but I really think that Ganging Up on the Sun is by far Guster s best album to date. The music is both catchy and sophisticated, and the vocals are fun and smooth, as always.

There s really not a single track on this album that disappoints me, so yeah, that s why it s on my list.
8. The Format Dog Problems
Despite the fact that it s about a break-up, this album s instrumentation is just saturated with high spirits.

In fact, I think that s a lot of what makes Dog Problems such an interesting listen for me. Ruess s vocals just seem so sad, so depressing and dark while the music itself is expansive, happy, even celebratory. The combination is unique, and it works.

The other cool thing is that the title track contains the word postmodern, which just makes it all so much better in a vague, bohemian sort of way
7. Joshua Radin We Were Here
After the first five seconds of listening to this album, I knew I would like it. That s right, folks that s the kind of person I am.

I develop those kinds of biases regularly while listening to music, and I ll be honest I don t care. I don t listen to albums just waiting for them to screw up. I give them the benefit of the doubt.

Granted, there are plenty of albums who do screw up for me but We Were Here isn t one of them. I for one really like Joshua Radin s airy vocals and slow, easy guitar playing. The background cello and piano are great too being two instruments that I just find myself really generally liking.

Who cares if the lyrics are emo and offer nothing more than sad break-up lamentations? There s a fleeting quality to Radin s melodies that works really well, in my opinion and it s enough to make me really love this album.
6.

Ghostland Observatory Paparazzi Lightning
Ghostland Observatory is such a cool name for a band. It always reminds me of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum for some reason even though I ve never actually listened to that band s music. Anyway, Ghostland Observatory seems to me like a less progressive, more party-music-y Mars Volta.

Aaron Behrens high, screaming vocals (which I found myself liking by the end of the album) are bound to come off as either really fun or really annoying to most listeners, but what I love about Paparazzi Lightning is the awesome instrumentation. Some parts of the album just strike me as really inspired but, really, this is just another one of those albums that I d describe as fun ..

. I know, terribly unoriginal, but oh well.
5.

Anathallo Floating World
My friend Matt introduced me to Anathallo, for which I am thankful. Initially, of course, I tried shrugging it off, minimizing my opinion of them so as to convince Matt that I was somehow vaguely too good for both him and his new musical discovery, so take that, Matt! Bastard.

” That didn t last too long due to my dreadfully low capacity for stoic persistence, and I now submit to this band s musical genius. Anathallo makes brilliantly complex music it almost sounds like they wanted to put poetry to music without sacrificing the poetry itself and to do so required exactly the kind of risk and daring that you see on this album. Floating World is good stuff, but, in fact, I didn t really start to appreciate it until I saw Anathallo live—a great experience that I would recommend to anyone.

The other thing that really made me love Anathallo was reading the lyrics to the song “Hoodwink.” Seriously, folks how can you not love a line like, “I m off in a distant place where I can be the signifier, not that which is signified”?.

.. Not to mention the last few lines, “We couldn t rest, with this awful sense of duty hanging off of our chests.

Peeled away. We had to get back to where the grip of our own hands could lift us from the failures in the eyes of men, to form our scales and weigh our works, good again.” This is great stuff, people.

Trust me. I m an English major. I know.

4. Chris Garneau Music For Tourists
It might seem like I m cheating by including an album whose official street release isn t until January 23, 2007. But Chris Garneau s debut, Music for Tourists, has been on sale on Absolutely Kosher s site since October, so I think I m allowed to include it.

Even if it hadn t been available, though, I think I definitely would have found a way to include Garneau in my 2006 wrap-up one way or another. Why? Because he s just that good.

I ll prove it: I downloaded the album in full (yes, illegally) and, upon listening, immediately purchased it online. That s saying something. Chris Garneau is being heralded by some as the next Sufjan Stevens—and I think he deserves the praise, even though it s basically opening him up for an onslaught of polarized criticisms over the next year or so (and to be honest, I would describe him more as Rufus Wainwright meets Joshua Radin, actually).

And while there are some things about him I don t like—most of which are non-musical, such as his promo photos (which do seem like he s trying too hard to be like Sufjan see ) and the way he writes in virtually all lower-case letters on his site (which so many great musicians do for some reason it s not that big of a deal, but still it s time for something new, don t you think?)—his music is incredible. His gentle vocals and slow, impeccable melodies make his music seem less expansive and playful than Sufjan s at times, which can be both good and bad, of course, depending on your mood.

But even while somber, Garneau retains an overwhelming beauty in his music, creating an atmosphere on this album that is both fragile and engaging. The lyrics, unfortunately, seem somewhat traditional—Garneau can t take as many risks as Sufjan, can t incorporate long lines and trains of thought in his music, simply because it doesn t seem upbeat enough to sustain them. But that doesn t change the fact that the music itself is beautiful.

So definitely give Chris Garneau a listen if you can appreciate the softer side of music—because he masters it well. I for one will be following his work from now on because I honestly think this guy might be going places.
3.

Sondre Lerche and the Faces Down Quartet Duper Sessions
I thought they stopped making this kind of music with that Billie Holiday guy! Har har! No but man oh man this album sounds like it was just lifted right out of the 30s or 40s!

Or 50s! Whenever the Jazz Age was. Was there a Jazz Age?

Wait, I think I m thinking of that movie Ice Age 2. What? I know what you re thinking Adam, now you re just being goofy!

We want a music review, not you being GOOFY ! Yeah? Well.

Duper Sessions is just a great album with laid-back, piano-centric jazz and light vocals, offering a refreshing detour from what you usually hear when you listen to jazz music, so Just listen to it.
2. Eric Bachmann To The Races
When my friend Jeremy first heard Eric Bachmann in my car, he said it reminded him of Bob Dylan and he was totally right.

I hadn t thought of it before, but Bachmann definitely has a Dylan-like quality to his singing voice except that it s much harder to get tired of Bachmann s, in my opinion. To the Races is a great folk album with the kind of impeccable melodies that I can t get enough of. There s sufficient risk in the album too (I don t know how else to put it): background vocals, violin, and piano all find their way perfectly into the album where you least expect them Bachmann could have just as easily made a good acoustic album without these elements, but the fact that he integrated them with such prowess really gives him a lot of points in my book.

The other thing that makes this album so good in my opinion-and this might not be fair-is that it was virtually all I listened to while reading a very good book (The World to Come, by Dara Horn) this year and so now whenever I hear it, that whole music-contains-memory thing kicks in, and I get the same feelings I had while reading that book which were very good, magical, aspiring feelings so yeah.
1. Sufjan Stevens The Avalanche: Outtakes Extras from Illinois Album
Another sprawling musical tour de force from my main man, Sufjan Stevens.

The Avalanche didn t get nearly as much critical praise as Illinois did, which I guess is to be expected. It s pretty much universally agreed that it s not as good as Illinois—but, personally, I think it is. I won t say it s better, but well, the way I see it is: it s Sufjan Stevens so it s gotta be good.

Yeah, call me a blind, crazed, bandwagon-surfing fan-boy but seriously, until Sufjan starts to really suck (and I mean really)...

I m going to love him. He s got a unique, powerful approach to music just about every song he makes is somehow well Huge. Not necessarily in terms of instrumentation or volume (although that certainly applies to some of his music).

.. but every song he makes just has this immensity to it this kind of magical, mammoth quality that it s hard to put your finger on.

He just has this amazing ability to make music that makes the listener feel that there must be some incredibly human (or divine) story behind every song, offering a rare glimpse into the pathos of human life, interaction, and spirituality. The Avalanche is no different. It s beautiful, it s expansive, it s orchestral it builds up, it slows down it s fun, it s somber, it s intimate, it s brilliant it s well it s Sufjan!

(And yes, I know, it s technically a b-sides album and not really valid for a top-list, but seriously, screw you. I don t care.)
I wasn t going to do this, but why not.

Here s the list of other albums, from highest to lowest, that I was thinking about including on my list if I had had the time (but I m not going to link them, I m too lazy):
My friend Jeremy is who initially exposed me to Page France this year by burning me a copy of Hello, Dear Wind. And oh how I appreciate that. Page France quickly climbed the ranks to being in my top five, perhaps even my top three (or two) bands.

Their music is just amazing and I love it.
That is songs that I loved a lot this year. 8.

Chris Cornell You Know My Name
This song, being the main title song used in the new Bond movie this year, is pretty effin cool. Of course it s much cooler hearing it when it s set to an awesome animated sequence of a Bond silhouette kicking ass, but yeah. I just really like this song.

Arm yourself cause no one else here will save you great message, too! :-\
7. Of Montreal Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games
I put this song on a mix CD for a friend because of how fun it sounded (and I needed something fun/goofy to balance out all the quieter stuff I had already put on).

.. but this song is more than just fun and goofy.

Sure, its sound is really great and upbeat but what really makes this song for me is the chorus (I guess it s the chorus): Let s pretend we don t exist, let s pretend we re in Antarctica there s just something really profound about that. Seriously. That s some Buddhist shit right there.

6. Calexico Landing Field
This song has got amazing piano chord progressions. And I am just all about amazing piano chord progressions.

It s such a gentle and humble song even down to the lyrics, which I love: I m ready to come down, I m ready to come down Just brilliant!
5. mewithoutYou In A Sweater Poorly Knit
As you may have noticed, I did not include mewithoutYou on my top-list.

That s because, for the most part, I can t stand Aaron Weiss s vocals. Sorry. They just don t do it for me at least, not in louder, more upbeat songs (I think it works a lot better in softer songs like the Spider tracks on the Brother, Sister album).

I can definitely tolerate it when it comes to this song, though simply because of the amazing instrumentation and background vocals that make it seem like it s from the movie Edward Scissorhands or something. Seriously, there s just something really magical about those certain parts throughout the song (incidentally, the parts where Aaron Weiss isn t singing . haha).

Also, I can t help but love the lyric the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead.
4. Sufjan Stevens Majesty, Snowbird
I first heard this song at the Tower theater in Philadelphia when I went to see Sufjan live.

He introduced it as being a melody that s been in his head for the past ten years. Such an introduction is only warranted when the song is amazing, of course and Majesty, Snowbird is amazing. It s both majestic and uh snowbirdy!

No but uh yeah, this song is just great. I can only hope Sufjan records a high-quality version of it sometime soon something tells me it ll be even better.
3.

Rogue Wave Eyes
I first heard this song on the TV show Heroes and it was really cool right away. I mean, the great thing about songs on TV shows is that if they re put at the right spots/montages, both the show and the song can benefit. I think that s the case with Eyes.

Whenever I hear it, I really get this strange sense of appreciation that either is due to solely the quality of the song itself, or is helped by, again, that music-contains-memory thing, with me recalling the cool feeling of watching that particular part of Heroes (which is a pretty good show, by the way. I recommend it). But I do highly recommend this song, too so here s a link to it:
2.

Chris Schlarb Twilight and Ghost Stories (Excerpt)
This song, found on the Mews Too compilation, is just a beautiful, beautiful song. It s short and it doesn t have any vocals, but that doesn t matter. There s a feel to it that just makes it intensely heartfelt.

Listening to this song inspired me to write some stuff this year, so that s a big part of why I love this song and of why I have an emotional connection with it (as gay as that might sound).
1. Regina Spektor Ghost of Corporate Future
This song might just be one of my favorite songs of all time.

The sound is perfect, of course, but the lyrics are what really make it for me. It s so lighthearted and yet there seems to be a real wisdom underlying the words. Just .

ugh, yes! I HIGHLY recommend this song. Seriously.

There is not nearly enough love for Guster here on MOG , and I m so glad you ve included Ganging Up On The Sun.
I know most people would disagree with me, but I really think that Ganging Up on the Sun is by far Guster’s best album to date.
No, I agree 100%.

I didn t like it at first, but it is now my favorite Guster album.