On Saturday night, Sufjan Stevens returned to the site of his BQE suite -- the Brooklyn Academy of Music -- for the latest installment in the BAM Takeover series. Suf was listed only as event curator, selecting rising composer Nico Muhly and St. Vincent among others to regale an audience comprised of, as some attendees told me, "drunken hipsters." Sounds about right. My friend Kathryn twittered...
I rediscovered Seven Swans this week. The album is a beautiful collection of songs with Sufjan’s seemingly autobiographical, go-to themes of love and religion. However, the track which shares the record’s namesake is a step above every other track on the album.The track moves its way through its first half with the same delicate banjo [...]
Did you see the moon Friday night? It was the biggest, brightest full moon of the year. It was low in the sky as I was driving home from work and it was marvelously radiant. Kind of like how you'd picture it in The Night Before Christmas when it says: "the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow gave the luster of mid-day to objects below."Sufjan Stevens --"The First Full Moon" mp3 off...
Aaron and Bryce Dessner of the National curated this amazing new compilation to benefit Red Hot, an organization to prevent AIDs. The compilation has everyone from the Arcade Fire and Decemberists to Kevin Drew and Grizzly Bear. I've heard the Feist Grizzly Bear team-up (it's awesome!) and can't wait to hear the rest. It'll [...]
Paste Magazine has published their list of the 50 Best Albums of the Decade (2000-2009) as voted by dozens of music critics.Leading the pack was Sufjan Steven's 2005 album Illinois followed by Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Arcade Fire's Funeral. You have to go all the way down to number 28 before you find the first album by an artist who has been recording for 25 years or more, Paul Westerb...
Photo via Trust Me On ThisA little over four years ago, I saw Sufjan Stevens perform at the Bowery Ballroom in New York the day after I moved to the city. It was certainly a different time then -- a little album called Illinois was still several weeks away from release, and Stevens treated a five night run at the Bowery as a rehearsal. Many of the things he'd come to be criticized for, like t...
To coincide with the official release date of his multimedia project "The BQE", the album has been made available to stream on NME.com. Unfortunately for those of us that live outside of the UK, will only be able to stream 30-second clips of the tracks. You can stream the...Click the link to read more
Let’s start with a quote from Paste Magazine.“The whole premise was such a joke… and I think maybe I took it too seriously. I started to feel like I was becoming a cliché of myself.”That’s Sufjan Stevens on his 50 Albums/50 States project. It’s also Sufjan continuing his More >
Ah, its that time again. Time to combine two of my favorite things in the world. The craigslist missed connections forum and music. So if you have never seen one of my semi-regular posts on this topic, the premise is simple. I pick out an entertaining missed connection, tag it with an appropriate song...instant entertainment. I know. I am very easily amused. But I will be laughing last when I c...
It turns out that Sufjan played a lot of new material during his show in Ithaca, there's the already posted 'There's Too Much Love' now two more tracks have appeared online 'Age of Adz' and 'Impossible Soul'. The more new music that I hear from Sufjan the more experimental...Click the link to read more
There was a time a few years ago when Sufjan Stevens, if he gerrymandered a district in such a way as to include music fans of a certain indie persuasion, could have made a successful run for Congress. Illinois had just come out, and the more starry-eyed among us were ecstatic at the prospect of 48 more state-themed albums. Those salad days are now long behind us, with nary a song to show for i...
Well, judgin by the TV it must be Christmas -Steve McQueen's just missed jumping into Switzerland and Bartlett and the boys have been mown down for attempting The Great Escape, (the BBC's msot bizarre festive favourite) so before I go and get lost in a day of gluttony, greed and spending time with people I love but don't particularly like (no doubt with usual conversations about the "ambiance" ...
You better watch out You better not cry You better not pout I'm telling you whyHipster Claus is coming to townOnce In Royal David's City is a Christmas carol, which was originally a poem written by Cecil Frances Humphreys Alexander, who in 1848 married an Anglican clergyman, and in 1867, upon her husband's consecration, thereby became a bishop's wife.This version comes courtesy of Sufjan Steven...