Sufjan Stevens
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Sufjan Stevens

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Like every star in the many multiverses we will all, one day, burn out to oblivion. Stevens’ music echoes this sentiment. We all shall love, we all shall perish, and the Earth will one day continue to spin without us or those that we adore on board. Our emotional footprint will live on. Our short-term purpose on this world will be served – but our highs, our lows and our cherished memories will eventually drift into the abyss of the terminable soul. We spend our lives attempting to escape the confines of the human condition, seemingly unaware that it dictates our every decision.

It’s three days before Christmas when I reach Stevens on the line in Brooklyn, New York. “Happy holidays to you and your family,” he remarks jovially. Stevens is taking a break after the strenuous schedule surrounding his latest LP Carrie & Lowell. “Since releasing this record I’ve toured for over 100 shows,” he says. “It’s the most I’ve ever done for a record. It’s been really enjoyable but also very gruelling.”

The aforementioned record is Stevens’ seventh studio album. Having reached the peaks of almost every 2015 end-of-year ‘best of’ list, the album is a spell-binding concoction of love, family, and ultimately, our own unavoidable fate: death. Stevens is no stranger to the deeply macabre strain of songwriting (see: John Wayne Gacy Jr., a bleak portrayal of the American serial killer and paedophile of the same name; or Casimir Pulaski Day, inspired by the death of a friend who succumbed to bone marrow cancer – both from 2005’s Illinois), but his musical projection of the death of his mother Carrie (who was diagnosed as bipolar and schizophrenic, and suffered from heavy drug addiction, substance abuse and homelessness) in 2012 has seen the musical auteur reach a realm of poignancy most artists would dare not even envision, let alone chase. The seemingly unrequited love of a mother mostly absent from your life as you stumble through her eulogy: it’s a concept lived out by millions, but scarcely put to record.

“It’s extremely emotionally taxing performing these shows,” says Stevens. “I’m performing songs that are about my pain and suffering. It’s not an easy thing to do. It’s a very intimate record, and I think that comes across when we’re performing it live.”

Stevens isn’t exactly chatty, not that I blame him. Our subject matter is far from enjoyable conversation. His sentences are fragmented, they stop and start without will. “You need to always try and be transcendent as an artist,” he says, referring to his return to stripped-back songwriting compared to 2010’s electronically experimental The Age of Adz. “That’s not what I think this record needed. It needed to be more raw, more emotional.”

Returning to Melbourne later this month, Stevens’ upcoming tour will be his largest to date, encompassing three shows at Hamer Hall.

So is it going to be like anything on the The Age of Adz tour when 100s of huge balloons fell down upon the crowd at the end of the show? “Ha, I forgot about that,” he laughs. “For the most part we’re doing the same show that we performed back at the Opera House (in a Sydney-exclusive show for Vivid LIVE in 2015). Obviously it’s been a bit more finetuned and we’ve started playing more older songs.”

As for the future? His Australian tour will mark the conclusion of a relentless 12 months of touring, so Stevens plans to take some time out to reflect on the world around him before getting to work on creating his next opus.

“I’m always working on new material. But I don’t have anything such as a new album in the works. I’d really like to find the time to record the Planets pieces that I performed with Bryce [Dessner, The National].

“After these Australian shows I’m going to take a break and recuperate. Recently I’ve been thinking that I’ve never really embraced the festival circuit. I think that’s something I’d like to do in the future. To stop focusing on just playing in regular venues and create a really new, fun festival show. We’ll see how that goes.”

BY TYSON WRAY