The Age of Adz
Banjos out, electronics in: a hysterical, maximal record made after an illness, framed by two quiet acoustic songs.
Sufjan Stevens, 2010
- Released
- 12 October 2010
- Recorded
- 2009-2010
- Label
- Asthmatic Kitty
- Producer
- Sufjan Stevens
- Length
- 74:49
By 2006 Stevens said he was tired of his voice and the banjo, and after the BQE project and a viral illness that attacked his nervous system he made a record he said was obsessed with sensation and had a hysterical melodrama to it. Its imagery comes from Royal Robertson, a Louisiana outsider artist and self-proclaimed prophet, and it ends with the twenty-five-minute Impossible Soul. Pitchfork summed it up: banjos out, moody electronics and geyser drums in, the whole book-ended by two quaint acoustic songs, the first of them Futile Devices. It reached seven in America.
Track listing
- Futile Devices2:11
- Too Much6:44
- Age of Adz8:00
- I Walked5:01
- Now That I'm Older4:56
- Get Real Get Right5:10
- Bad Communication2:24
- Vesuvius5:26
- All for Myself2:55
- I Want to Be Well6:27
- Impossible Soul25:35
More from Sufjan Stevens
Illinois (2005), Carrie & Lowell (2015)
Sources
- The Age of Adz, Wikipedia
- The Age of Adz review, Pitchfork (2010-10-12)