Kitty Empire on the startling rise of an American visionary

Scratch the surface, and singer-songwriters can be a dull lot. Sufjan Stevens, however, is not only one of the most compelling new voices in American music; he is also a figure shrouded in myth.

It’s said that his US gigs are like prayer meetings; that he has written concept albums about the Chinese zodiac and his home state of Michigan, and plans to do all 50 states; that he teaches knitting to the blind; that he was found in a milk crate on his parents’ doorstep in Detroit in 1975.

What’s beyond question is that his new album, Seven Swans (Rough Trade), will establish Stevens as an heir to Elliott Smith and Will Oldham. Pregnant with emotion and plucked folk longing, the album starts out as an intimate examination of the heart. Soon, though, its songs take a turn towards William Blake and the Old Testament. There are prophetic visions - the seven swans of the title - and celestial choirs; Abraham is asked to reconsider his sacrifice. God is reimagined as a besotted lover.

Stevens is rather humble about the fuss his fourth album, is causing. ‘It hasn’t been my intention all along to make music for a living, I’ve just been doing this for fun,’ he says. Indeed, Stevens’s biography on his US label’s website identifies him as ‘a graphic designer, an amateur seamster, a crocheter of ski caps, and a writer of short fiction’. Live, he is sometimes joined by the Michigan Militia, a 12-strong band and choir dressed in scout uniforms. ‘What we try to do is create a sense of joy and patriotism that is somewhat glib and sarcastic, but somehow really reverent as well,’ he explains.

It seems a shame to demystify Sufjan: the stories are just so good. He wasn’t really found in a box: but the truth is just as fascinating. One of six children, Stevens had a complex upbringing. ‘One of my strongest memories is my father playing bongos in the living room in Detroit listening to Motown radio. He was this skinny white bald guy, but he was really moved by blues and Motown and funk. Saturdays, he’d be smoking pot and playing bongos.’ His intriguing name comes from his parents’ adherence to Subud, a spiritual movement they eventually abandoned. ‘It was very complicated growing up. My family moved through fads and phases very quickly, everything from EST training to crystal healing, macrobiotics and cooperative living. They weren’t even as conventional as hippies. They were… searching.’ The family moved to rural Michigan when Stevens was eight. ‘We lived in this small trailer and at one time had geese, chickens, goats, sheep, and rabbits, a lovebird, a California king snake in a cage that got out for a couple of months, several cats, Pomeranians and black Labradors. They were always dying and breeding.’ His own record label is called Asthmatic Kitty, but he has no pets.

Stevens learned to play the oboe at school and joined a folk band. ‘I felt really drawn to folk because it seemed really utopian. As a naive high schooler I was intrigued. That’s why I grew my hair long, wore bandannas and started smoking cigarettes…’ He then rebelled by becoming involved in the church.

‘The spiritual ambiguity growing up made me really latch onto a faith - Protestantism - that was somewhat conventional. Everyone else was rebelling against traditions and institutions, whereas I was rebelling against the upheaval and uncertainty in my family.’

Eventually, Stevens moved to New York to do a master’s degree in writing and stayed. He really does teach knitting to the blind in his spare time. Now working in educational publishing, Stevens wrote Enjoy Your Rabbit to break away from folk, before returning to instruments and the troubled psychogeography of Michigan.

‘I’ve gone back to Michigan a lot since I wrote the record,’ he says, ‘and I found in some ways it’s just a place in my mind.’

Ultimately, Seven Swans is about love. ‘I can see patterns in the songs about relationships with family, lovers and friends, or a divine being, and sometimes songs confuse the two,’ Stevens says. ‘There’s an attitude of reverence and awe and love, in terms of very corporeal love with God, as well as with people.’

Will he really record an album for each of the 50 states? ‘That’s the intention, we’ll see how far I get. I’m working on several of them at once, Illinois, Rhode Island and Oregon.’

What about his adoptive New York? ‘I think I’d have to leave first,’ he smiles.