Credit: Far Out / Sufjan Stevens

Sufjan Stevens announces new studio album ‘Javelin’

Mon 14 August 2023 14:51, UK

American multi-genre singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens has announced his newest studio album, Javelin.

The new LP will be Stevens’ first solo effort since Convocations in 2021. However, that was actually a set of multiple albums containing instrumental ambient material. That means that Javelin will be the first non-instrumental solo album from Stevens since The Ascension in 2020.

Even though there has been a three-year gap between Stevens’ solo albums proper, the artist has remained busy during that time. In 2021, Stevens released a collaborative studio album with fellow folkie Angelo de Augustine, A Beginner’s Mind. He also teamed up with composers Timo Andres and Conor Hanick to release Reflections earlier this year.

All that being said, the album’s press material indicated that Javelin will be a return to Stevens’ stark folk sound that was last explored on 2015’s Carrie & Lowell.

That sound can be heard in the album’s first single, ‘So You Are Tired’. A languid piano ballad, ‘So You Are Tired’ bridges the gap between choral pop, orchestral rock, and ambient folk, tied together with Stevens’ signature whisper-thin voice.

For Javelin, Sufjans has assembled a team of collaborators that includes musicians like Hannah Cohen, Adrienne Maree Brown, Pauline Delassus, Megan Lui, Nadelle Torrisi, and The National’s Bryce Dessner, best known these days for his work producing Taylor Swift.

Check out the audio for ‘So You Are Tired’ down below. Javelin is set for an October 6th release.