Sufjan Stevens
Pen: Larry Hess
Lens: Denny Renshaw
Design: Guy Villa

A concept album about Michigan does not seem like the stuff of an instand classic (unless, of course, you are a resident of The Great Lake State).

But Sufjan Stevens’ Greetings from Michigan transcends the goofiness of its concept with stellar writing, intricate arrangement, and a depth of emotion that universalizes the tales of his home state, turning them into stories that encompass the hopes, dreams, and disappointments of middle-class America in general. The album built on slow-moving hype to become one of the breakout indie-rock albums of 2003. His follow-up, Seven Swans, shows a slightly different side of Stevens. The arrangements are starker, showcasing his brilliant songwriting, and unique banjo playing is more present. The songs on Seven Swans are filled with more religious imagery, as compared to the everyday people tales of its predecessor. Seven Swans uses the hushed bleakness to effective ends, displaying Stevens’ talent as a songwriter without the lofty pretense of a “concept” hovering over the album.

Born in Detroit, and raised in northern Michigan, near Petoskey, Stevens was drawn to Baroque music in middle school, and the influence is still very prevalent in his work. “So many of the Romantics had the best melodies, and real emphasis on drama. They weren’t afraid of trumpet flourishes and cymbal swells. I hear a lot of this kind of gaudiness in my music,” explains Stevens. Stevens does not shy away from the dramatic in his writing, or in his arranging. Tremendous choir-like choruses are mixed with synths and horns, and anything else that this multi-instrumentalist can find to play. Although he seems very comfortable with expansive compositions, the quiet moments of Seven Swans are equally effective, balancing his whispery vocals with lightly strummed guitar, or unaccompanied banjo. The album is highlighted by the constant balancing act between these two instruments. His style on both guitar and banjo is fairly similar. He arpeggiates on the banjo and lets the tone ring through, rarely using the usually plucking technique. The duels between these instruments have the potential to be claustrophobic, but the tender nature of the songs, and the simple and traditional vocal melodies, come together to create extremely full and beautifully organic sounding music. It is music that is hushed and dark, but very seldom does it come across as melancholy. More often, Stevens shows a knack for observation and sensitivity that allows the song to move in quiet beauty without becoming overwhelmingly self-deprecating or internalized. He is able to use religious imagery, much like the early work of Leonard Cohen, as allegory, in order to relate it to his personal experience.

The religious elements of his music are related to his parents constantly changing spiritual beliefs. Steven describes the religious environment of his household as “variable,” because his parents were constantly soul searching. “Principles changed by the week,” he says, “Sometimes we were on special diets, sometimes we weren’t allowed to watch TV, sometimes we were Star Children, sometimes we were Methodists, sometimes we were reading books on crystal healing, sometimes were left with incompetent babysitters while my parents went away on self-realization seminars.”

He left his home state to move to New York City where he attended The New School for Social Research. He enrolled in the writing program there, where learned to become more of a storyteller than a mere songwriter.

“I do think that the people I’ve met and the music I’ve heard since I’ve been in New York have had a profound influence. The writing program most likely affected my composition. I’m much more invested in narrative than ever before. I write in terms of story.”

Once in the Big Apple, Stevens helped to organize a small music program, during which he saw the Danielson Famile perform. He was immediately impressed, “It was pretty extraordinary,” Stevens says of his first experience of the Danielsons. “Daniel (Smith, The Danielson Famile’s founder and main man) was just starting the Famile then, so we didn’t get in touch until maybe a year later, when I gave him some of my music. He asked me to help out on tour when Chris (Palladino) couldn’t make some of the shows. So I learned the parts for the farfisa and did the best I could. Later, he invited me to play banjo. I found myself going all over the world with them.” This was the beginning of Stevens taking himself seriously as a musician. “It was an incredible learning experience. I never expected to have a music career of my own. I think playing in the Danielson Famile helped in leading up to this. Daniel was a mentor, of sorts. He’s been encouraging me along the way.”

Stevens is an accomplished engineer on his own merit, putting together the sonic bombast that is Greetings From Michigan, but with Seven Swans, he decided to hand the reins to Daniel Smith, and let Smith act as producer for the album. After the overwhelmingly positive response to Greetings…, the choice to make a more scaled-down record was an unusual one, but one that ended up working out perfectly for the songs that were to become Seven Swans.

“I think it sounds the way it does because I didn’t record it. Daniel Smith made most of the production decisions. He recorded everything. We used his equipment and recorded it in his house. I think we were doing things more closely to how other people do them. You write songs, on guitar and voice. You go into a studio and record them. Michigan was completely different. It’s a manifesto. It’s a studio record. It’s an opera. It’s my own visionary song cycle, painstakingly pieced together. It was never intended to be played live. It’s an isolated project which combined many recording sessions in many living rooms all across the country.”

The songs on Michigan are so close to Stevens’ heart that the decision to let Smith record Seven Swans was also a decision to allow another ear to influence the music, in stark contrast to the very singular vision of Michigan. His dramatic approach to the production of Michigan would not have worked as well with this batch of songs. He was also recording both albums simultaneously, actually with the intention that Seven Swans would be released first. Recording two albums at the same time was an exhausting prospect, leaving Stevens happy to share the load and allow Smith to dictate the sound of Seven Swans. “I think I tend to over-arrange and overproduce,” says Stevens of his production choices. “I think big. I think in terms of composition and arrangement. This is fine for a lot of things, but sometimes a particular song needs just a little bit of salt and pepper, not a side salad and capers and red wine and onion rings and teak sauce. Sometimes it’s great to collaborate with someone else. It’s not about songwriting, it’s about relationships.”

Much of the album is about relationships, but rarely of the sexual nature. More often the songs speak of famly, and close friends now forgotten. Stevens has a knack for sense memory, in which he can take the smallest detail and convey it in such a way that it explains the overall longing for the place or person he remembers. It borders on sentimentality, but while this is considered a mortal sin in the writing world, it does not necessarily make for sappy music. People get homesick; people miss other people; people remember the smells and sounds of previous times in their lives. Expressing this in song is something that, if done with skill, sensitivity, subtly, and taste can create music of depth and significance. Stevens achieves this by neither condemning nor romanticizing the experiences and characters about which he writes. His technique is closer to realism, in that he just puts it out there and lets the listener take what they will from it. This is his major strength, and it a quality that makes his music more open to interpretation and, at the same time easier to which to relate.

So much of what makes Stevens’ music unique and memorable is his ability to look back at the people he has known and the places he has been with an outsider’s point of view. He is able to speak volumes about his experiences while remaining slightly detached. Still, he never seems cold, unconcerned, or judgmental. To the contrary, this point of view allows his characters to take on a greater sense of humanity. Many people would not see much to write about in the world that Stevens describes, but it’s the simple life that piques his interest, and his ability to illustrate this world with his words and music is what make Sufjan Stevens such an interesting and promising new voice in the current indie landscape.