Music That Changed My Life
Noise
Sufjan Stevens
By Kyle Anderson

With so many eclectic elements going into his albums, as on last year’s critically acclaimed Illinois. you’d think freak folkie Sufjan Stevens, 30, would be trying to remain on the cutting edge, feverishly searching for new sounds. You’d be incorrect. “I don’t have the inclination to discover new music,” he says. “Honestly, I don’t really care.” The old music he likes can get pretty weird, however, including New Age, free jazz, and… the Bangles? Come on, feel his noise.

Judee Sill Heart Food ASYLUM, 1973 “She was a singer/songwriter in the ’70s. She was from a middle-class family but ran away and started doing drugs. The more you listen to her songs, the more you realize all the weird stuff going on. She was reatly into baroque music, or at least had those sensibilities. When I started writing songs. I started looking into people like her, trying to figure out what kind of environment they were writing in.”

Mike Oldfield Ommadawn EMI, 1975 “He was the guy who did ‘Tubular Bells,’ which was popular because it was in The Exorcist. But this record came out after that. It reminded me of Brian Eno: a mix of space-traveling music, really bad world beats, chanting, and bagpipes. It’s corny, but I love it. It’s been a big influence - I’ve always been interested in stuff that sounded epic and ambitious,”

King Sunny Ade Juju Music MANGO, 1982 “I had never heard anything like this. This introduced Western listeners to Afrobeat music, and I think it’s one of the first times you hear weird synthesizers in Afrobeat, as well. At the time, I was playing the oboe in school, but I hadn’t started writing songs, so I was drawn to stuff that wasn’t necessarily about songwriting. It was more about arrangements and symphonic elements.”

Cocteau Twins Victorialand 4AD, 1986 “Elizabeth Fraser was kind of making up her own language and singing in it. She has the most versatile and sublime voice I’ve ever heard in any kind of popular music - it’s like Sinead O’Connor, but it’s not as annoying as Sinead O’Connor. Victorialand is probably their best because it’s so moody and affectionate.”

Benjamin Britten A Ceremony of Carols HYPERION, 1986 “This is one of the most haunting Christmas pieces ever written. It’s a liturgical work for a boys’ choir and harp, I listen to this late at night, when I’m trying to relax or meditate, except the harp can be really aggressive, like Zeena Parkins. She’s Bjork’s harpist. She really can cut that thing up.”

Bangles Everything COLUMBIA, 1988 “This is the first tape I ever bought with my own money. They wrote great songs, were talented performers, and they were supermodels. I know they were ripping off early girl-punk bands from the ’70s, but there was something about the way they did it. It was so streamlined and well crafted. This is the one indulgence from the Top 40 that I still like.”

Kletka Red Hijacking TZADIK, 1996 “I first heard this biking through Europe, from Paris to Switzerland. They took old klezmer songs and translated them into punk rock. It’s not corny at all - it’s probably one of the hardest records I’ve ever heard. I was listening to Sonic Youth around the same time, like Sister and Daydream Nation, and when I heard Kletka Red, it made those records sound like elevator music.”

Daniel Carter, Reuben Radding Luminescence AUM FIDELITY, 2003 “Daniel Carter is one of the few living legends of jazz. This record is him playing saxophone and Reuben Radding playing bass, and it’s improvised from start to finish. These guys have been playing together for years, and there’s a level of awareness of each other’s energy that I admire. I don’t have that. My band are all hired guns, and they just do what I tell them.”