The Age of Adz Is Upon Us

Well I have known you/for just a little while
But I feel I've known you/I feel I've seen you...
In all reflections/I see your method/I see it all
And what about you? And What about me? Are we the lost of lost?
-- "The Age of Adz"

No education could prepare anyone for the political revolutions of 2011, and maybe only music-- maybe only Sufjan Stevens' "The Age of Adz"-- can really help anyone take it all in. After his last full-length recording, "Illinois" in 2005, Sufjan produced a collection of outtakes, a Christmas album, a film and original score, an an "EP" of complex and hopeful anthems. All of these endeavors might have only been creative practice towards "The Age of Adz," Stevens' finest, and most complete work, to date. Its presentation of hope, loss and love comes among a unified and difficult, if not apocalyptic vision of the exterior world.

While even Stevens' most recent previous release, the "All Delighted People EP" fancied Paul Simon's words as most appropriate (citing "hello darkness my old friend" and other phrases from "The Sounds of Silence"), "The Age of Adz" addresses humans more often than darkness or highways, talking to people and groups more often than anything else-- including the wild looking monster on the cover. This image, replete with its penned scripture and pop culture phrases ("the day the earth stood still"), was created by Royal Robertson (1930-1997), whose influence on this work might not be underestimated. From a blurb on Sufjan's own site:

The Age of Adz refers to the Apocalyptic art of Royal Robertson (1930 –1997), a black Louisiana-based sign-maker (and self-proclaimed prophet) who suffered from schizophrenia, and whose work depicts the artist’s vivid dreams and visions of space aliens, futuristic automobiles, eccentric monsters, and signs of the Last Judgment, all cloaked in a confusing psychobabble of biblical prophecy, numerology, Nordic mythology and comic book jargon. Portions of the album use Robertson’s work as a springboard into a cosmic consciousness in which basic instincts are transposed on a tableau of extraordinary scenes of divine wrath, environmental catastrophe, and personal loss.

While Robertson's carefully drawn art complements and may have inspired the music's lyrical themes, this connection isn't necessary to make sense of "The Age of Adz." In an interview a few years ago, Stevens-- himself a person with a spiritual upbringing--claimed to see music as a medium that was not useful for outright theological discussion. Thus his choices in how to answer the cover's idiom "The Day The Earth Stood Still," and other end-of-civilization themes come framed not in religious zealotry, but through building some sembelence of human connection and shared understanding-- even if that semblence is built of the moments of our lives when exterior elements have shattered us, destroying our ability to perceive our own decay. The day the earth stood still-- the Age of Adz, as it were-- will be known for its motionless rapture, its "Bad Communication" and fleeting clarity ("Now That I'm Older," "I Walked," "I Want to Be Well"-- all song titles). The last track, "Impossible Soul," tries to define something of how a relationship might work within a frantic (and 25-minute) sonic environment.

To what extent is this an electronic album? More importantly, to what extent does one notice? The more one knows of Stevens' earlier work, the more one might miss technical banjo licks and expressive acoustic guitar strumming, but-- as orchestral as Stevens' work has become-- the presence of synthesizers and beats not only trump any "natural" sounding instrumentation, but create a music that is meant to be heard during the Age of Adz: a tumultuous time of discovery and renewal, of learning and holding dear what is essential between all of us. If Stevens were less proficient in harnassing the power of his keyboard arsenal, these soundscapes may be fast cluttered. Each track is distinctly not overburdened by elements, but carefully and strategically-- and more interestingly than most Phish jams, notably-- arranged to include some movement, from one musical place to another. As Charles Bukowski's sparse and crude lines made up his Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992), "The Age of Adz" allows a listener to expect the interplay of raw synth tones, electronic beats of varying complexity, live drums, and the rise and fall of melodic themes. Stevens' tireless work in the studio is reflected in each track; sonic environments are created and destroyed, as civilization, and its individuals, rise and fall.

A vegetable vendor has his scale taken from him in Tunisia; Egyptians protest and oust their leader; people in many countries, connected by new virtual networks of knowledge and power, try to replicate Egypt's example. Relationships themselves, between individuals and groups, fall and rise, against a background of wildest fantasy, and in these-- each of these-- we try and share what Best we can.

Now I have known you for just a little while
I feel I must be wearing my welcome
I must be moving on

For my intentions were good intentions
I could have loved you/I could have changed you

I wouldn't be so/I wouldn't feel so
Consumed by selfish thoughts

I'm sorry if I seem self-effacing
Consumed by selfish thoughts

It's only that I still love you deeply
It's all the love I got -- "The Age of Adz"