Sufjan Stevens - Convocations (May 6, 2021) • Page 2

OotyPa · Apr 22, 2021

Haven't listened yet but wow noise-ambient Sufjan sounds sick

(casual reminder that ambient music doesn't always have to be "background music" or "peaceful")

irthesteve · Apr 22, 2021

wood&wire · Apr 22, 2021

Enjoying Revelations. Suf's having a real Brian Eno moment, which is cool.

That being said, Lamentaions was rough. Didn't make it through haha.

ItsAndrew · Apr 26, 2021

irthesteve · Apr 26, 2021

Revelations is pretty nice

SmashRipsaw · Apr 26, 2021

Really like Meditations and that new one from Celebrations. Everything else not so much.

ItsAndrew · Apr 29, 2021

irthesteve · May 6, 2021

the full thing

ItsAndrew · May 6, 2021

S/U/F/J/A/N S/T/E/V/E/N/S

A note from Sufjan about the album:

“New Age” music has a bad rap, probably because of all the silly pan flutes, chimes, and synth beds they play at yoga class or in the massage parlor. I wouldn’t even call that music. It’s more like wallpaper—a warm background aesthetic, soothingly generic and ambiguously “ethnic.” It serves a grand purpose of total blandness—its avoidance of true substance allows you to focus on healing and health while doing the downward dog or getting your calves rolled out. It’s not great art, but it serves a purpose. I refuse to judge it. I believe there’s a time and a season for everything.

A lot of great music that falls within the category of “New Age” doesn’t necessarily prescribe to these bland tropes. Ambient instrumental music may soothe and inspire, but it can also create a world of surprise and astonishment. The sounds themselves, absent of verbal language, can speak volumes. “New Age” music doesn’t always have to be about calm and relaxation—it can also be about an awakening, a passageway to catharsis, a journey to a new consciousness, or a spiritual exorcism. It seeks to change the chemical particles of our reality without enforcing plot. It lifts the hairs on your neck. It transforms your heart. It moves mountains…. and other aphorisms.

I suppose “New Age” suffers from bad terminology and negative connotations because of its functional nature. It often serves a positive and palliative purpose above all else. So perhaps we should broaden our scope and call it something else: “instrumental music,” “ambient music,” or “mood music.” Music without words. (Or very few words.) Music that doesn’t seek to tell a story. Music without literary affectation or narrative. Music absent of vocabulary. Soundscape. Landscape. Soothescape? It’s such a conundrum to name things that repudiate language in the first place. Perhaps this why we often make up words to make sense of it, or to put it in its place, however condescending: i.e. Muzak.

Language is an incredible tool. But it can also be a total bitch. When we speak, we often conspire to reduce everything to semaphores of construct and functionality—signs and symbols tasked to explain a reality whose beauty or mystery is negligible. We manipulate with words. We coddle. We confuse. We use language to control our fate. We use language to acclaim arrogance and ego. We weaponize language. We ascribe greatness to its usage and fidelity. We use language to construct false realities. We use language to obfuscate and oppress. We use language to lie, cheat and steal. We use language to destroy. I suppose this is the inevitable nature of humanity in the throes of its most powerful tool: free speech. In Genesis, God created the universe by speaking it into existence. Not much later, He used language to curse that creation and speak it out of existence with a flood. Every time we open our mouths we are playing God, for better or for worse. I suppose the lesson is: watch what you say. Or, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
Language has certainly served us well. We use it to tell stories, to draft laws and constitutions, to perpetuate democratic ideals and human equity. Language is power; it constructs reality. And, I admit, it has been an indelible cornerstone in my work. As a singer/songwriter, I have used words to process joy and suffering, to conjure stories and fables, to communicate transcendence, and to exclaim my truths. But language has often let me down as well. There are so many things I just cannot shape into a song. Words fail me. And more often, in the wake of current events—and in the present state of reality—I find myself utterly speechless. Sometimes things get so weird and so terrible, there is nothing you can sing (or say) about it. We find ourselves dumbfounded. Or fed up, overwhelmed, incapacitated. In an age of information, anxiety, inequity, and with so much access to unprecedented excess, I sometimes worry that language has let us down, and that—through sloppiness, irresponsibility, and bad stewardship—we have done language a grave disservice, and that our indulgence in its whims has led us to committing an abuse of power. Perhaps it’s the curse of too much of a good thing. Social media and the 24-hour news cycle perpetuate these verbal pathologies. The daily onslaught of click-bait, tweets and all-caps headlines finds us short of breath and at a loss for words. What is the responsible, humane way of responding to all this content?

Silence is golden. But it cannot be propagated. It just is. Or, more appropriately, it just isn’t. The next best thing, for me, is the drone. Or the simple tone. The chime of a bell. The breathy tone of the pan flute. The synth bed. The resounding chant of the Sanskrit “Aum.” The cornerstone of “New Age” music. See now, we’ve come full circle. We’re back in yoga pants and listening to our heartbeat. This is a good thing.

Some of my favorite music is “New Age” adjacent — minimalism, drone music, mood music, environmental soundscape, non-verbal pop music, meditation music, tone poems, movie soundtracks, etc. Some of my favorite albums have no words at all, or very few intelligible ones (or, in some cases, the words ares secondary and do not inform my listening experience at all). To name a few: Brian Eno’s Music for Airports. Terry Riley’s A Rainbow In Curved Air. Cocteau Twins’ Victorialand. Glassworks by Philip Glass. Everything by Enya. Vangelis’s soundtrack to Bladerunner. Everything by Julius Eastman. Peter Gabriel’s The Last Temptation of Christ. Roberto Lange’s Island Universe Series. Mother Earth’s Plantasia by Mort Garson. Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants. Mike Oldfield’s Ommadawn. Everything by the Boards of Canada. Everything by Ryuichi Sakamoto. Everything by Morton Subotnick, Maryanne Amacher, Christian Fennesz, and Wolfgang Voigt. The list goes on.

This is all to say that sometimes not saying anything at all says everything. When words fail me, I turn to sound, which speaks volumes. A simple beat. An arpeggio on the piano. A metal brush on a cymbal. A low moan. A beautiful drone. Whether it’s Whitman’s “barbaric yawp,” John Lennon’s primal scream, or Langston Hughes’ exploding raisin, the sound is the sense. And it contains multitudes. Let’s listen for it.

ItsAndrew · May 10, 2021

Interview

Sufjan Stevens Releases 'Convocations,' A New-Age Journey Through Loss And Joy

ItsAndrew · May 21, 2021

Audio interview

Echoes Podcast: Sufjan Stevens, Mythos, Patrick O'Hearn

iCarly Rae Jepsen · Jun 30, 2022

iCarly Rae Jepsen · Nov 16, 2022

SmashRipsaw · Nov 16, 2022

Sufjan owes us about a dozen more Christmas albums at this point, right?

iCarly Rae Jepsen · Nov 16, 2022

SmashRipsaw said:

Sufjan owes us about a dozen more Christmas albums at this point, right?

48 to be exact

irthesteve · Nov 16, 2022

SmashRipsaw said:

Sufjan owes us about a dozen more Christmas albums at this point, right?

If he kept making them for his friends and family each year, then there are 9 we don't have

Atticus5143 · Nov 16, 2022

Would be hilarious if he just randomly dropped Maine or some shit

iCarly Rae Jepsen · Nov 30, 2022

SmashRipsaw · Nov 30, 2022

iCarly Rae Jepsen said:

His interviews are always so interesting and insightful. Kinda bummed that there probably won't be any more Christmas albums, but I understand his reasoning. He did so many songs in a very short amount of time.

iCarly Rae Jepsen · Mar 9, 2023

iCarly Rae Jepsen · Aug 11, 2023

https://www.reddit.com/r/indieheads...&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1

ItsAndrew · Aug 11, 2023

I just posted that in the Ascension thread lol I’m so excited!

Log in or Sign up

Sufjan Stevens - Convocations (May 6, 2021) • Page 2

fall away Supporter

formerly irthesteve Supporter

just one of those ghosts

Prestigious Prestigious

formerly irthesteve Supporter

Outcast Tape Infirmary

Prestigious Prestigious

formerly irthesteve Supporter

Prestigious Prestigious

Prestigious Prestigious

Prestigious Prestigious

run away with me Platinum

run away with me Platinum

Outcast Tape Infirmary

run away with me Platinum

formerly irthesteve Supporter

Trusted

run away with me Platinum

Outcast Tape Infirmary

run away with me Platinum

run away with me Platinum

Prestigious Prestigious

Log in or Sign up

Sufjan Stevens - Convocations (May 6, 2021) • Page 2

Useful Searches

fall away Supporter

formerly irthesteve Supporter

just one of those ghosts

Prestigious Prestigious

formerly irthesteve Supporter

Outcast Tape Infirmary

Prestigious Prestigious

formerly irthesteve Supporter

Prestigious Prestigious

Prestigious Prestigious

Prestigious Prestigious

run away with me Platinum

run away with me Platinum

Outcast Tape Infirmary

run away with me Platinum

formerly irthesteve Supporter

Trusted

run away with me Platinum

Outcast Tape Infirmary

run away with me Platinum

run away with me Platinum

Prestigious Prestigious