MOG

Sufjan Stevens - A Sun Came

Disc 1 1. We Are What You Say 2. Winner Needs A Wand 3. Rake 4. Siamese Twins 5. Demetrius 6. Dumb I Sound 7. Wordsworth's Ridge 8. Belly Button 9. Rice Pudding 10. Loverless Bird (Without Remission) 11. Godzuki 12. Super Sexy Woman 13. Oracle Said Wander 14. Happy Birthday 15. Jason 16. Kill 17. Ya Leil 18. Sun Came 19. Satan's Saxophones 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.

And Sufjan Stevens does just that. 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.

You can find this in the shop at http://www.ironmanrecords.co.uk or for a direct url try http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Iron-Man-shop