Asthmatic Kitty

For his first LP of new material in five years, Sufjan Stevens reinvents himself as an electro pioneer with The Age of Adz. Best known for his campy banjo songs and precious vocals, the indie-folk hero now matches wits (and beats) with Animal Collective, Kanye West, Bon Iver and Brian Eno. Though Adz is a bold new direction that will surely polarize fans, it didn’t come out of nowhere. Stevens dabbled in electronica on 2001’s Enjoy Your Rabbit and wrote beautiful orchestral movements for 2005’s Illinois. Here, he combines the two and adds layers of reverb, glitchy breaks, autotune falsetto, hip-hop beats, swarming horns and choir vocals (often in one song, as he does on the 25-minute “Impossible Soul” ) to create a tripped-out digital symphony for the over-stimulated hipster.