Last week, Sufjan Stevens announced a new album, Convocations, which quickly follows the pair of projects he just released in 2020. This new record is a big one, as it’s a five-volume album, with each volume dealing with the five stages of mourning (Stevens’ father died just days after his 2020 album The Ascension. Before releasing Convocations as a whole, Stevens is releasing each volume individually. Meditation came out last week while this week will bring Lamentation. He has prefaced that portion of the album with “Lamentation II,” which features airy synths contrasted by harsher, lower tones.
Convocations was previously described in a statement, “The album is divided into five sonic cycles, each replicating a different stage of mourning. Convocations occasionally soothes and sometimes hurts; when it’s done, you’re left with a renewed sense of wonder for being here at all. In fact, Stevens made Convocations in response to (and as an homage to) the life and death of his father, who died in September last year, two days following the release of The Ascension. It is, then, ultimately an album about loss, and an album that reflects a year in which we have all lost so much.”
Listen to “Lamentation II” above.
Convocations is out 5/6 via Asthmatic Kitty. Pre-order it here.
