Sufjan Stevens & Lowell Brams: Aporia
It’s hard to find a kindred musical spirit through a band audition or Craigslist ad. But, luckily, Sufjan Stevens had one waiting at the family dinner table. In the late 1980s, the songwriter’s now-late mother married Lowell Brams, a crucial presence in his childhood (as documented on Stevens’ 2015 LP, Carrie & Lowell) and future co-founder of his Asthmatic Kitty record label. The duo also quietly started collaborating on ambient instrumental music—first on the 2008 collection Music For Insomnia and now, 12 years later, on their hypnotic follow-up, Aporia. They assembled the record through a series of lowkey jam sessions, with Stevens plucking out the juiciest improvised nuggets and shaping them into a pile of New Age sound sculptures. The mood is drowsy and futuristic, built largely on squelching synths, keyboard pads and electronic doodling. Grooves rise from the fog then fizzle out (“Ousia”); human voices add flickers of warmth (the choral touches of “What It Takes,” Stevens’ own brief belting on the slow-climbing “The Runaround”); barely there interludes wave hello and vanish (“For Raymond Scott,” seemingly titled after the electronic pioneer of the same name). Many of the album’s centerpieces sound like hybrids of Stevens past electronic work, like 2001’s Enjoy Your Rabbit, and the more accessible moments of Tangerine Dream and Mike Oldfield. (The crystalline melodies of “Climb That Mountain” recall the dense splendor of the latter artist’s work circa Tubular Bells). Given its scattershot track lengths and instrumental focus, it’s easy to write off Aporia as A-list mood music. But resist that temptation.
