Much anticipation has built about the latest Sufjan record Javelin in the weeks leading up to its release at the beginning of October. As if it was a return to form for a major talent after a few misdirected, slightly barren years. As if it was something big.
Whether this interests you obviously depends on whether you ever cared very much either way about Sufjan in the first place. Talking to the blokes who work at the record shop across the road, always a good barometer for these kind of things, it seems clear that he leaves many totally cold.
I'm in the Sufjan corner certainly. Have been pretty much since my sister, (who generally knows about these things), directed me his way in the early days of his global cult. Round about when Michigan and Illinois came out.
I'm not the ultimate completist Sufjan fan mind. Nor do I own all of his albums. You won't see me in the upcoming series of Mastermind, asking questions about him as my chosen specialist subject. But I've loved plenty by him down the years, and I think he's something really special. I listened to Javelin when it came out last Friday, bought a vinyl copy the next day and have been playing either that or listening to the record on Spotify on headphones all week. I imagine I'll be doing this for a while as winter descends.
Sufjan has a sound that makes him a genuinely millennial artist in my book. There are a few others I'd bracket him with given his chosen approach. Nick Cave, Will Oldham, Frank Ocean, Joanna Newsom Courtney Barnett, Kate Le Bon and Kendrick Lammar are the ones that come to mind immediately. This is not a theory of thought I have developed to any degree that merits a doctorate. Even if it does I haven't got time to write one. Make of it what you will. Feel free to take it where you wish or else ignore entirely. This is what blogs are for after all.
It's Sufjan's intensity, his spirituality, his ferocious, insistent bloodletting that marks him out; even if the names I've mentioned are esteemed company indeed. Javelin hardly finds him branching out and exploring new territory so much as circling in on emotional terrain that he's made almost entirely his own down the years. Establishing his patch once more.
Anyhow I've been listening to it on repeat. Increasingly intrigued. Sufjan it seems is suffering from a mysterious condition at the minute. He hasn't been able to walk at all of late though apparently he's set to make a complete recovery. I certainly hope so. We need artists like Sufjan. I look forward to hearing his next record. In the meantime Javelin looks set to keep me warm for the time being. Until Christmas at least.
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