Sufjan Stevens - Carrie Lowell

Sufjan Stevens’ mother left his family when he was one, leaving his father to look after him and his three siblings. His father remarried, flirted with religious group Subud and various other faiths as the family moved around Michigan, living on the breadline under authoritarian rule and without any form of music in the household.

 
Stevens’ mother, Carrie, later got remarried to a man called Lowell Brams, who in time introduced Stevens to Zappa and Nick Drake, amongst many others, and supported his musical awakening with unrelenting generosity and unyielding support. Although Carrie and Lowell eventually divorced, Stevens is still close to Lowell – who runs his record label, Asthmatic Kitty.
 
He endured a strained relationship with his mother, who never fully re-integrated into his life, and found himself full of mixed emotions at her passing in 2012. Like many artists do, Stevens grieved through writing, and although he admits to gaining no catharsis from the process, he soon racked up 30 demos. He was lucky enough to have his friend, Thomas Bartlett (musician/producer) sift through his work and present him with what he thought his record should be. The result is arguably Stevens’ most fully formed and powerful work to date.
 
Carrie & Lowell could be described as a back to basics folk record, most easily aligned with 2004’s Seven Swans, with songs like Eugene and Should Have Known Better displaying wonderful storytelling qualities to back that description. However, the 11 years between the two records really does show – both songs mentioned are so beautifully honed and have such richness – that Stevens has drawn heavily on the skill he’s acquired in that time, with Should Have Known Better revealing layer upon layer of complexity. It manages to take the listener through 3 distinct cycles, bridging hopelessness to optimism both lyrically and musically, all under the guise of what appears as a simple song on first play.
I’ve been a huge fan ever since the release of Michigan in 2003. Stevens’ output has been creative, consistent and inspiring over the last 12 or so years, but never has it been so rounded as on Carrie & Lowell. The opening line of the first song, Death With Dignity, sets the bar so high that it is hard to know where the record can go from there:
“Spirit of my silence I can hear you, but I'm afraid to be near you / And I don't know where to begin.”
The words encapsulate the sense of confusion and fear that accompany grief so concisely to immediately place us directly in Stevens’ shoes in the first steps of the journey he is faced with. It’s as good an opening line as I can think of (with the exception of Van Morrison’s Gloria). Add to that the delicacy of the instrumentation and the underlying positivity of the lullaby-like melody, and you really do have a special piece of work.
 
Cradlesong melodies run throughout the album, coming across particularly well with Stevens’ double-tracked, half-sung, half-whispered delivery in tracks such as John, My Beloved and Fourth of July. Rather than being at odds with the subject matter, they serve to bring rays of optimism and colour.
 
Favourable comparisons to Elliot Smith are naturally drawn – crisp lyrics, stripped back arrangements and intimate vocals are all in evidence. The work on Carrie & Lowell is definitely up there with Smith, but it is unique to Stevens. No Shade In The Shadow Of The Cross shows how willing he is to lay himself bare:
 
“There's blood on that blade, fuck me, I'm falling apart / My assassin like Casper the ghost. There's no shade in the shadow of the cross.” 
 
Like all of the elements of the record, there’s much more to the eye (or ear!) than the initial impression might present. Despite much of the lyrical content appearing as deeply personal (which it clearly is), this album contains themes we can all relate to: forgiveness; belonging; positive shoots to sprout from death and the circularity of life. These universal subjects slowly reveal themselves as the record gets more spins, as does the harmonic and melodic strength of the songs, and the arrangements. Songs that at first seem simple are anything but. However, the craft involved in getting them across so succinctly is rare and is a clear sign of where Stevens is now, as an artist.
 
Within the 11 tracks that populate the album, there is so much to get lost in, be it the stories, the imagery or the melodies. Underpinning it all is something not yet touched on – the sublime production. Fourth Of July has an ethereal sparseness at its core that is expertly created and offers level upon level of subtle detail. Album closer, Blue Bucket Of Gold employs a muted yet intimate piano treatment heard on older albums such as Chicago and Illinois; expertly engineered as to create a sonic bed for the fragile vocal to lay.
 
The album is exciting in so many ways – its purity of writing, the way it shows us how much Stevens has grown as a writer; how much of an antithesis it is to its immediate predecessor; Age of Adz – the list goes on. It is the combination of these things that excites me the most – no-one really knows what Sufjan Stevens will do next (his history shows this), but we do know that his powers are growing and if he continues on this arc, his next project will be spectacular, whatever it is.
Adam Atkins