Festival Music
Sufjan Stevens
Edinburgh Playhouse
Nicola Meighan
Five stars
For all of his baroque pop voyages – from Illinois to outer space – Sufjan Stevens' most enlightening journey has seen him travel inwards, backwards, to the darkness of the heart, as mapped out on this year's devastating magnum opus, Carrie and Lowell.
The Michigan indie poet's seventh album explores the throes of life, death, love and abandonment, as driven by the loss of his absent mother – the titular and troubled Carrie – who left the family home when Stevens was a young boy, and who died in 2012.
You might wager that said album's intimations to suicide, self-harm, grief, self-doubt, maternal rejection and child abuse would make for a harrowing live experience. But Stevens has an uncanny knack for couching his emotional blows in warm, sublime, uplifting songs, and this, teamed with stunning lighting and electrifying arrangements – minimalist here; prog-raucous there – made for a life-affirming show.
There were laments of disorientation, but so too were there hymns of forgiveness and cautious hope, not least picturesque aria Should Have Known Better – a show-stopping audio-visual homage to the light of life (“My brother had a daughter, the beauty that she brings...
illumination”).
His mother's apparition was invoked time and again. “Everything I feel returns to you somehow,” he lamented on drum-thundering The Only Thing, and he addressed her directly on the glorious Death With Dignity (“I forgive you mother”).
It might feel intrusive to witness grief in such close quarters, were in not for the fact that Stevens is such a generous songwriter, offering words of of solace for all of our losses. “What's the point in singing songs?” he sang on Eugene. But he'd already answered that.
Sponsored by Russian Standard Vodka
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here