EVANS RICHARDSON
In 2015, Sufjan Stevens released Carrie & Lowell, an acoustic, lyrical, startlingly personal collection of songs recorded after the death of his mother. In many ways, Convocations is a companion piece: recorded following the death of his father, late last year. But it is strikingly different in nature –a longform ambient record, 49 tracks and two-and-a-half hours long, that serves as something of a requiem in a time of global loss. Divided into meditation, lamentation, revelation, celebration, incantation, it is by turns curious, brittle, exquisite, and surely among the most accomplished and beautiful records of Stevens’ career.