“What’s the point of making music anymore?” said Sufjan Stevens in September 2009, making music fans across the world screech in anguish and spin Illinois on repeat. Having become disenchanted with the music industry and the decline of the album format, Stevens, since 2005, has only released outtakes, Christmas songs, a multi-format orchestral tribute to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and an orchestral reworking of his electronic album Enjoy Your Rabbit.
Why would somebody so adept at songwriting refuse to write for five years? There are no answers on All Delighted People, which was recently released by surprise online, but the confusion will have lifted its gloomy fog come the end of the opening track, with the first appearance of the uplifting motif “all delighted people raise their hands!”, making you realise that you’re within classic Stevens territory. The pumping brass, swooning strings and his sweet, unique voice are all present, but this time enhanced with electronic leanings on “From The Mouth of Gabriel”, incendiary guitar solos on “Djohariah”. No longer being constrained by any kind of overriding concept leaves his lyrics far more open to interpretation.
Upon listening you’ll soon realize that this EP isn’t really an EP at all. Spreading across eight tracks and lasting only just under an hour, it’s built around two versions of the title track, which features blasts of white noise and a jazz like feel in its first incarnation, and a more upbeat and lively arrangement in its second.
All Delighted People ranges from blissful happiness to the darkness of “The Owl and the Tanager” and everything in between; simultaneously becoming Sufjan Stevens’ most lush and sparse album to date, as well as his most impressively diverse. It really is a relief to have him back. All delighted music fans raise your hands.
Conclusion - Lengthy but captivating.
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