Sufjan Stevens announces new album ‘Javelin’ and shares first single
Sufjan Stevens has announced his new album ‘Javelin’ and shared lead single ‘So You Are Tired’ – listen to it below.
‘Javelin’ is due out on October 6 via Asthmatic Kitty Records, and is available to pre-save/ pre-order here. The LP marks the artist’s first solo album since 2020’s ‘The Ascension‘, and his first back in “full singer-songwriter mode” since ‘Carrie & Lowell‘, according to a press release.
It also follows his April release ‘Reflections’, a studio recording of his score for the ballet by choreographer Justin Peck.
Lead single ‘So You Are Tired’ is a gentle piano number that gradually swells to introduce guitars, percussion and a choir of powerful vocals. “So you are tired of us / So rest your head,” Stevens sings.
Listen to it below.
The forthcoming 10-track album sees “the entire experience of Stevens’ 25-year career brought to bear in four-minute bursts of choral, orchestral, and electric wonder”, as per the release.
The musician worked with a close circle of collaborators on the new LP, including adrienne maree brown, Hannah Cohen, Pauline Delassus, Megan Lui, Nedelle Torrisi and Bryce Dessner. Stevens’ cover of Neil Young‘s ‘There’s A World’ also closes the album.
The release will also be accompanied by a 48-page book of art and essays created by Stevens.
The 10 short essays, which vary widely in tone and style “offer little glimpses into loves and losses that have shaped him, and, in turn, these songs”.
Find the tracklisting and album art below.
The ‘Javelin’ tracklist is:
1. ‘Goodbye Evergreen’
2. ‘A Running Start’
3. ‘Will Anybody Ever Love Me?’
4. ‘Everything That Rises’
5. ‘Genuflecting Ghost’
6. ‘My Red Little Fox’
7. ‘So You Are Tired’
8. ‘Javelin (To Have And To Hold)’
9. ‘Shit Talk’
10. ‘There’s A World’
Back in June, Stevens announced that he is set to share new music as part of a 20th anniversary reissue of his 2003 LP ‘Michigan’. Earlier this year, it was also announced that the follow-up, 2005’s ‘Illinois’, will be turned into a musical.
His string of recent announcements and new releases comes after he expressed his desire to “a break and step back” from music for a while in 2021.
In a four-star review of his May 2021 release ‘Convocations’, NME wrote: “‘Convocations’ is a mature work, but its length and intricate creation makes it difficult to get under its skin, the record’s wonderful honesty hidden behind layers that you wish could be peeled back.”
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Hollie Geraghty
NME
