Sufjan Stevens announces ‘Carrie & Lowell (10th Anniversary Edition)
ASTHMATIC KITTY ANNOUNCES DELUXE 2-LP 10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF SUFJAN STEVENS’ CARRIE & LOWELL, OUT 30 MAY
FEATURES SEVEN PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED BONUS TRACKS, 40-PAGE BOOKLET & NEW ESSAY BY SUFJAN
LISTEN TO PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED ‘MYSTERY OF LOVE (DEMO)’
“A delight in every way”
5/5 The Guardian
“[Carrie & Lowell] feels like you’re hearing [Sufjan Stevens] for the first time again, and in his most intimate form’”
Pitchfork, 9.3 ‘Best New Music’
Listen to ‘Mystery of Love (Demo)’ here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNDuNpxpRkY
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In March 2015, Sufjan Stevens released Carrie & Lowell – his most personal album to date. Presented with an unexpected clarity of vision, the record was a return to Sufjan’s folk roots in its deliberate, sparse instrumentation. The album was an instant critical success, and in the years that followed the music would weave itself, undimming, into the fabric of our shared culture. Now BPI and RIAA-certified Gold, with the track ‘Fourth of July’ achieving Platinum status in the US, the album’s cultural resonance continues to grow.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the release, Asthmatic Kitty Records announces Carrie & Lowell (10th Anniversary Edition), out 30 May and available for pre-order now, and releases ‘Mystery of Love (Demo)’.
The deluxe edition features an expanded double-LP album that includes seven previously unreleased bonus tracks, a 40-page art book, and a new essay by Sufjan. This edition also offers an alternative cover: a full-framed version of the original Polaroid zoomed out to reveal the photo’s caption written in a child’s handwriting—“Carrie & Lowell”—disclosing the source of the album title (it was written by Sufjan’s sister Djamilah). Designed by Sufjan, the 40-page booklet contains various collages of vintage family photos spanning four generations interfused with artwork and drawings (on themes of death, dying, grief and the state of Oregon) as well as landscape photos Sufjan took while traveling across the western U.S. over a decade ago.
The original album is preserved on one disc, while disc two contains 40 minutes of extras, including demo versions of ‘Death With Dignity’, ‘Should Have Known Better’, ‘The Only Thing’, and ‘Eugene’. Expansive outtakes of ‘Fourth of July’ and ‘Wallowa Lake Monster’ are also included, both featuring a more cinematic mood. The final gem is the original demo of ‘Mystery of Love’ taken from the original Carrie & Lowell album sessions but later re-worked and re-recorded for Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name. The demo version here features solo guitar and voice with slightly altered lyrics.
Carrie & Lowell was the result of an immensely difficult process in which Sufjan’s songwriting – usually a salve – failed him in the wake of his mother’s death. He was eventually led out of a cycle of creative doubt with a rare handover of production duties to Thomas Bartlett. In wrestling with darkness and devastation, life and death, Sufjan was eventually able to begin making sense of the beauty and ugliness of love.
Sufjan toured the album and personally connected his findings with his listeners, a beautiful hand-over of sorts happened – making these songs those of the listeners and their lives and losses and complexities. Since the album’s release the live tour was turned into a live album, so surprisingly celebratory and cathartic as to become something else entirely. Outtakes, remixes, and iPhone notes have been shared via Sufjan’s The Greatest Gift mixtape as well as a collection of ‘Fourth of July’ versions that took one moment from the album and explored its every crevice.
Ten years on, this anniversary edition does things differently to those other treasures. Rather than deconstructing the album or building on it and continuing its legacy, this edition takes the listener back to the moments leading up to and including its release. Carrie & Lowell is presented in its full form once again, alongside a glimpse of the different roads it could have taken. There are new corners to explore, photographic realising of moments previously only lyrically painted, direct reflection from the album’s creator, subtly different weight on certain syllables that speak to Sufjan’s mind right before he shared it with the world.
Pre-order Carrie & Lowell (10th Anniversary Edition) here:
https://sufjanstevens.lnk.to/CL10year
Photo credit: Emmanuel Afolabi
High-res images can be found here
Carrie & Lowell (10th Anniversary Edition) tracklist:
Disc 1:
1. Death with Dignity
2. Should Have Known Better
3. All of Me Wants All of You
4. Drawn To the Blood
5. Eugene
6. Fourth of July
7. The Only Thing
8. Carrie & Lowell
9. John My Beloved
10. No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross
11. Blue Bucket of Gold
Disc 2:
1. Death with Dignity (Demo)
2. Should Have Known Better (Demo)
3. Eugene (Demo)
4. The Only Thing (Demo)
5. Mystery Of Love (Demo)
6. Wallowa Lake Monster (Version 2)
7. Fourth of July (Version 4)
Praise for Carrie & Lowell:
“A delight in every way”
5/5 The Guardian
‘Album of the Month’ 4/5 Mojo
“At every turn [Stevens] unfolds the fists of self-pity into upturned palms of generosity”
5/5 ‘Album of the Week’ Daily Telegraph
“This whispered, exquisite collection is so fragile that you daren’t open a window in case it blows away forever”
5/5 The Standard
“A musical and emotionally cathartic triumph”
10/10 Loud & Quiet
“A stark, sublime immersion in intimate memory”
9/10 Uncut
“[Stevens] spools out his genius as casually as breathing”
9/10 NME
“The overall gentle, delicate texture of Carrie & Lowell is like a gossamer shroud of solace cast over a period of deep confliction”
4/5 ‘Album of the Week’ The Independent
‘Album of the Week’ The Observer
“It’s a quietly astonishing album”
Esquire
‘9/10’ Clash
‘4/5’ FT
“By going through it all, by exposing all the pain, Sufjan’s created something beautiful and vital”
4/5 DIY
“A beautiful album of unfaltering rawness”
The Quietus
“A sparse, beautiful and gut-wrenching album”
5/5 The Arts Desk
8.5/10 ‘Album of the Week’ The Line of Best Fit