Sufjan Stevens has never been one to shy away from creating music with grandiose thematic concepts. His previous work have tackled the 50 states (Michigan, Illinois), the Chinese Zodiac signs (Enjoy Your Rabbit), and even the BQE (um, duuuuh, The BQE).

So when I first learned he was working on a new project that would serve as an anthem of the solar system, well, I can’t say I was surprised. It’s like being shocked by news of Snooki having genital herpes… or Hepatitis B… or full-blown AIDS — well, you get the picture.

Depending on where you stand on concept music and, more specifically, Sufjan’s concept music, you are either incredibly psyched about this new project or you are rolling your eyes so far back, someone has likely called for your immediate medical attention.

So far, there is no word of a proper album release. Instead, Sufjan is on the road with the National’s Bryce Dessner and multi-instrumentalist Nico Muhly doing a handful of European and Australian dates to preview the new material.

Joined onstage with the New Trombone Collective & Navarra String Quartet, Sufjan, Dessner and Muhly played Amsterdam’s Het Muziektheater on the weekend. After watching YouTube footage of the entire show (doesn’t anyone just watch shows without filming anymore?), I personally think it’s some of Sufjan’s most fascinating work.

The song video clip above, “Mercury”, is arguably my favourite of the 11 songs they performed. Sufjan’s vocals are gorgeous and the strings and percussion arrangements have the kind of epic, cinematic quality you would hear in a Hans Zimmer score.

Another thing I need to mention is Sufjan’s introduction to “Pluto”, where he endearingly explains—in a manner that only Sufjan can—the reasoning behind Pluto’s exclusion as a terrestrial planet.

Pluto is interesting because it’s fixed on its moon, and they rotate around each other staring at each other affectionately. Which is kind of a beautiful metaphor, but I think that was one of the reasons why it was demoted because I think now to be a “proper planet” you have to command the authority of others. And because the moon and Pluto are existentially attached as equals, then neither of them can be considered a planet. Sad but true.

Day one of Osheaga at Montreal’s Parc Jean-Drapeau was hands down the stronger of the two-day festival, particularly when factoring in the evening’s 1-2-3 punch combination of Pavement, The National, and Arcade Fire.

Watching even one of these bands is enough of a sensory overload, so to see them all back-to-back-to-back was, for lack of a better term, a skeet-fest.

Yes, I practically skeeted on some unsuspecting dude’s back, five rows ahead of me, during Pavement’s “Range Life”. How’s that for range?

(Let it be noted that the same joke could probably have been made with “Starlings of the Slipstream”, “Spit on a Stranger”, and “Rattled By the Rush”, all of which the band played.)

But despite the general enthusiasm brought on by Pavement’s reunion show, one festival attendee was less than impressed by the band’s influential sound.

Just minutes into the second song of their set, “Stereo”, off their Brighten The Corners album, a highly intoxicated fan lobbed a half-full cup of beer on stage (around the 2:19 mark of the clip).

The cup pelted frontman Stephen Malkmus in the chest, drenching his body in cheap draft.

Malkmus seems like the most arbitrary target, especially when considering the also featured Keane and Weezer, but he handled it with grace, joking around that it was a “nice shot”. He even tasted his beer-soaked shirt and declared it was Labbatt’s.

Fortunately, Pavement continued the rest of their one-hour set (this could have easily turned into a Kings of Leon or Nickelback situation), and the band proved exactly why they have earned the title of indie rock pioneers. 
 

When Sufjan Stevens told Exclaim! last November that he “I don’t really have as much faith in my work as I used to,” fans began to lose hope of him releasing a proper follow-up to 2005’s masterpiece Illinois.

But in a recent interview with Exclaim!, National member and Sufjan BFF Bryce Dessner said that Sufjan is, in fact, currently working on an album at The National’s Brooklyn studio.

And if you can trust Dessner’s opinion (and I think we can), he says the album is “going to be incredible” and that it is “going to probably blow people’s minds.”

No word yet on when this so-called incredible album will be out in stores, but my guess is between this fall and 2020.

Here’s Sufjan backing The National on vocals last month on Letterman.

The National destroyed shit on Letterman the other night. I don’t mean that they literally destroyed shit because their mothers raised them to be better than that. No, I just mean that they put on a great performance of “Afraid of Everyone”, just one of the many highlights you’ll find off their new record, High Violet.

Accompanied by BFF Sufjan on background vocals, the guys gave us just a taste of what we can expect when they play back-to-back nights at Massey Hall, June 8th and 9th.

For those of you who weren’t quick enough on the draw to get tickets to one of those two shows, you obviously don’t have your priorities straight in life. But you can redeem yourself by watching the free live webcast of their BAM Howard Gilman Opera House show tonight on YouTube at 8 pm EST.

On a side note, I love it when Letterman engages in forced banter with the music guest every night. I love the guy, but there’s no way he’s never seen a harmonium. Isn’t he like 70 years old? He practically invented that shit.