Sufjan Stevens breathes his life, grief into ever-changing catalog
Listening to a Sufjan Stevens record requires emotional stamina.
The insightful indie-folk songwriter — whose past works have touched on schizophrenia (I Walked) and serial killers (John Wayne Gacy, Jr.), among other subjects — has never shied from testing a listener’s comfort level.
On his latest album, Carrie & Lowell — named after his mother and stepfather — the 39-year-old Stevens focuses on first-person confessionals about faith, abandonment and loss.
The gentle melodies pack a surprising wallop: Throughout 11 tracks marked by plucked strings and his trademark whispery warble, the singer comes to terms with the death of Carrie, who in 2012 succumbed to cancer after a lifelong battle with alcoholism and mental illness.
Although Carrie left her four children when Stevens was just a year old, her second husband, Lowell Brams, helped reunite them, albeit briefly. (Today, he runs Stevens’ record label, Asthmatic Kitty, from Wyoming.)
Ghosts of the past still linger — with Stevens asking the estranged matriarch “Did you ever love me?” and telling her “I just wanted to be near you.”
Ultimately, the musician opts for resolve: “I forgive you, mother,” he sings on Death With Dignity, the album’s opening song.
The reflective effort, however, didn’t offer the catharsis he expected.
“I was recording songs as a means of grieving, making sense of it,” Stevens, who wasn’t offering interviews, told The Guardian last month. “But the writing and recording wasn’t the salve I expected. I fell deeper and deeper into doubt and misery.
“It was a year of real darkness,” he continued. “In the past, my work had a real reciprocity of resources — I would put something in and get something from it.”
Yet fans take plenty from Stevens, who will perform Friday in the Palace Theatre.
Part of the intrigue comes from his constant shape-shifting.
He released two concept albums centered on the history, folklore and geography of American states — 2003’s Michigan and the acclaimed 2005 record Illinois, featuring breakout single Chicago. (Efforts to profile other states never materialized, although Carrie & Lowell, with its lyrical and visual nods to his childhood summers in the Pacific Northwest, might have been titled Oregon.)
A 2004 project, Seven Swans, explored themes of Christianity.
The Age of Adz (2010) was a bombastic, electro-heavy blast inspired by the works of outsider artist Royal Robertson. The BQE, a 2007 mixed-medium project named after the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, included an orchestral suite by Stevens.
And two multi-disc holiday records bore not only traditional hymns but also original tunes such as That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!
By contrast, the stripped-down Carrie & Lowell is absent of quirks or fantasy.
It is seemingly the most raw, the most real, that the artist has ever been.
“With this record, I needed to extract myself out of this environment of make-believe,” Stevens told
Pitchfork.com in February. “It’s not really trying to say anything new, or prove anything, or innovate. It feels artless, which is a good thing.
“This is not my art project; this is my life.”
kjoy@dispatch.com
@kevjoy
Sufjan Stevens
PALACE THEATRE, 34. BROAD ST.
Contact: 1-800-745-3000, ticketmaster.com
Showtime: 8 p.m. Friday
Tickets: $39.50