Sufjan’s Stevens new album “Javelin” is a career defining work. His growth as a songwriter, musician and producer over the twenty plus years that’s he’s been recording all come together with a collection of songs about love at a time when his personal life is at it’s lowest ebb.
Stevens combines his soft spoken vocals and acoustic instrumentation with the electronic experimentation that has dominated his most recent work and does it mostly by himself. Except for the five siren-like background singers and some guitar work from The National’s Bryce Dressner, he is the only musician. In fact, he designed the album cover and it’s forty page booklet of art and essays himself.
The motivation for such a great work of art is hinted at in a couple of postings to his social media where he reveals his long-time partner passed away in April and the fact that he is suffering from a autoimmune disorder that has left him temporarily paralyzed. The songs comes into focus as he writes this in his post: “live every day as if it is your last, with fullness and grace, with reverence and love, with gratitude and joy. This is the day the Lord has mad. Let us rejoice and be glad of it.”
Stevens songs on “Javelin” all touch on the subject of love as if it were something new, acknowledging how necessary it is to human existence in a way that has never been done before.