Sufjan Stevens’ eighth solo studio album is due for release on Friday, September 25th. ‘America’, the first single from The Ascension, is available for streaming now.
It’s been more than five years since Sufjan Stevens’ last studio solo album. That record, 2015’s Carrie & Lowell, contained the American musician’s most affecting songwriting to date. It was also one of his best – publications such as The Guardian, Pitchfork and Stereogum listed it in their top ten albums of 2015, and Stevens’ 2015 Sydney Opera House performances were monumental.
Never one to cower in the face of high expectations, Stevens has returned with a legitimate epic in the form of ‘America’. The new track runs for 12 riveting minutes, with Stevens merging electronics and orchestration in a manner akin to 2010’s The Age of Adz.
The lyrics mourn the degradation of Stevens’ home country. He keeps going back to the line “Don’t do to me what you did to America,” throughout the song, and the disturbing gravity of the lyric intensifies with each recitation.
‘America’ actually dates back to the Carrie & Lowell sessions, but the song’s sweep and grandeur is far removed from that record’s intimate examination of grief.
“I was dumbfounded by the song when I first wrote it,” says Stevens. “Because it felt vaguely mean-spirited and miles away from everything else on Carrie & Lowell. So I shelved it. But when I dug up the demo a few years later I was shocked by its prescience.
“I could no longer dismiss it as angry and glib. The song was clearly articulating something prophetic and true, even if I hadn’t been able to identify it at the time. That’s when I saw a clear path toward what I had to do next.”
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The Ascension follows Aporia, a Blade Runner-inspired synth album made by Stevens and his step-father Lowell Brams, which came out in March 2020.
Check out ‘America’ by Sufjan Stevens:
