Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be a hip-hop review site? Sufjan Stevens is his own genre of music. It’s called “amazing.”
Sufjan is known for his fantastic use of many unusual instruments. After past albums, such as Greetings from Michigan and Illinois, we can expect nothing less than a full orchestra and some to be accompanying Sufjan. However, after past albums such as Seven Swans, we know that he can make a fantastic music using nothing more than an acoustic guitar and his voice. So, what is Sufjan going to throw at us this time? All Delighted People EP utilizes everything Sufjan has done in the past, and even utilizes in some new sounds that we aren’t used to hearing from this magical musician.
It has been quite a while since Sufjan released anything, and since that time, most of us have been wondering if he was still writing music. Well, he was, and he wrote it well. The first track, the title track, “All Delighted People” surprised me a little bit. Sufjan tends to start off his albums slow. This song starts off with nothing but voices. There is a choir behind him, while he sings soulfully about his life. He even says, “I have trouble letting go of choices I have made.” He really lets us look into his life through these beautiful lyrics. Eventually, the track starts to move, when he adds guitar, bass, and drums. He doesn’t stop there. He then begins to add horns and strings such as the trombone, trumpet, violin, viola and cello. This song just grows and grows in intensity to a major climax, and it suddenly drops off to just a guitar. The strings bring us back to consciousness, and we are hit by a flurry of notes from every instrument he has available. The voice is a little quiet for my own personal liking because it is hard to understand every word, but that is very Sufjan-esque. I believe he keeps the voice low in volume because he just wants the voice to be another instrument. It is no more important than the guitar, or trumpet, or viola. It just adds to the overall colortone of this magnificent work of art.
The second track, “Enchanting Ghost,” reminds us very strongly of an album I mentioned before, Seven Swans. It begins with straight acoustic guitar and voice. Sufjan slowly adds in a lead, electric guitar and backup voices. He even throws in a harp for color. Surprisingly, he decided not to harmonize the entire vocal line, as he often did in past albums. This is very similar to “The Owl and the Tanager.” This track, unlike many tracks from Seven Swans, has an extremely depressing tambre and tone to it. While it is in a minor key, something not that rare for Sufjan, he expresses his sorrows with depressing lyrics. He even goes into free time (music without a meter) in the middle, where he almost rants through poetic language about his life.
Sufjan throws in a reprise of the first track, “All Delighted People (Classic Rock Version),” in the middle of the album. This is pretty common for Sufjan to do. He’s done this before, such as creating over four different versions of the song “Chicago” off the album Illinois. This version is similar to the original “All Delighted People”, just a little more rock oriented and groovy than the original title track.
“From the Mouth of Gaberiel,” is when Sufjan really starts to experiment. In past albums, he was dabbling with using some electric instruments and sounds. The song “Dear Mr. Supercomputer” off the album The Avalanche is a great example. This EP is much more, in my opinion, electronically driven than his past albums. He uses some electric sounds and instruments in this song. However, he really starts to experiment, and succeed, in the final track “Djohariah.”
“Djohariah” is a song that could have its entire own review. It’s that elaborate and that eloquent. Sufjan has one chord progression that he outlines primarily using voice “ooh’s”. What’s so interesting about this progression is that the four chords he uses– vi IV ii I– are all so similar that if you’re only half listening, you could not even realize that the chords are changing. From one chord to the next, there is always at least one common tone. Between the second/third chords and fourth/first chords, there are two common tones. This creates what I call the ‘basking’ effect. It makes you just want to bask in the music. For those of us who aren’t as versed in complicated music terminology, Sufjan took an idea so simple, boiled it down to the essentials, and then grew it differently like few have done before. Anyway, the basis of this track is similar to the first track. The first six minutes start slow, and through a very tough-to-listen-to electric guitar solo, build to a crazy intensity. He slowly adds in new instruments, many of which are electrified, including himself. He even electrifies his own voice for added effect. The song climaxes multiple times, and each time, it reaches a new, insane height. Do yourselves a favor and listen to all 17 minutes and 2 seconds in a row. I have never heard a song, or an album, quite like this one before. I proudly give this album a solid A.
Track List:
1. “All Delighted People”
2. “Enchanting Ghost”
3. “Heirloom”
4. “From the Mouth of Gaberiel”
5. “The Owl and the Tanager”
6. “All Delighted People (Classic Rock Version)
7. “Arnika”
8. “Djohariah”
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