Sufjan Stevens Goes New Age On ‘Aporia’

The new album by Sufjan Stevens and Lowell Brams, Aporia, is inspired by classic new age and experimental electronic music.

Here’s what label Asthmatic Kitty has to say about it:

In the spirit of the New Age composers who sanded off the edges of their synths’ sawtooth waves, Aporia approximates a rich soundtrack from an imagined sci-fi epic brimming with moody, hooky, gauzy synthesizer soundscapes. The album may suggest the progeny of a John Carpenter, Wendy Carlos, and Mike Oldfield marriage, but it stands apart from these touchstones and generates a meditative universe all its own.

The word “aporia” is Greek in origin, literally meaning “without passage” or “at a loss.”

This is a good description of how many of us feel right now.

What is happening? What happens next? What can we do? What now?

We harbor no delusions of grandeur—this record is hardly the most important thing in your world right now—but we also believe that music is sacred and has the ability to bring beauty, wisdom, truth and light to our lives in difficult times. We hope this music can bring you meaning, hope and encouragement today.

You can preview the album via the embed above.

Tracks:

00:00 – 1. Ousia
02:34 – 2. What It Takes
06:01 – 3. Disinheritance
07:16 – 4. Agathon
10:20 – 5. Determined Outcome
12:36 – 6. Misology
14:27 – 7. Afterworld Alliance
17:16 – 8. Palinodes
17:51 – 9 .Backhanded Cloud
19:19 – 10. Glorious You
21:10 – 11. For Raymond Scott
21:47 – 12. Matronymic
22:46 – 13. The Red Desert
25:42 -14. Conciliation
27:03 – 15. Ataraxia
28:19 – 16. The Unlimited
30:35 – 17. The Runaround
34:14 – 18. Climb That Mountain
37:14 – 19. Captain Praxis
39:31 – 20. Eudaimonia
41:53 – 21. The Lydian Ring

4 thoughts on “Sufjan Stevens Goes New Age On ‘Aporia’

  1. That was pretty killer, dude! Total change from the usual with the constant chord changes. Was wondering if the majority of the sound came from hardware or soft synths.

  2. That was pretty killer, dude! Total change from the usual with the constant chord changes. There was what sounded like some repetition of patch usage in a few tracks, so I wasn’t sure if this was based on soft or hardware synths.

  3. Sounds good, so far. I think its disingenuous to call it “New Age”, (which has become cooler in some circles over the last 6 or 7 years), though, and there is certainly no reason to invoke the names of Wendy Carlos and John Carpenter when listening to this music.

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