There’s a few hiccups and a few highlights, but Aporia otherwise takes you on a pleasant albeit innocuous journey.
When Sufjan Stevens announced his collaborative album Aporia, two things really stood out: first, that he would be recording it with his stepfather Lowell Brams and that it had been in the works for years. Stevens co-founded his label Asthmatic Kitty with Brams in 1999, and fans got to learn about Stevens’ family on his tragic and personal 2015 triumph Carrie & Lowell. Second, the album would be inspired by “new age” music, including Enya and Yanni. Stevens has proven his proficiency with folk, rock, electronic, and orchestral music, so there was little doubt he’d be able to perform a style popularly relegated to spas and yoga studios.
The 21 ambient, almost entirely instrumental tracks of Aporia are by and large exactly as mellow and relaxing as you’d expect. There’s a few hiccups and a few highlights, but it otherwise takes you on a pleasant albeit innocuous journey that makes you think “well that was nice,” but not much else.
For some background, Aporia isn’t the first instrumental music collaboration between Stevens and his stepfather. The duo had previously collaborated (along with the National’s Bryce Dessner) on an album called Music for Insomnia, released under Brams’ name in 2009. It was part of Asthmatic Kitty’s “Library Catalog Music Series” that was billed as “background sounds” for TV or movies, or for home use while you do chores and activities. However, it’s hard to imagine anyone actually using Music for Insomnia for these purposes; the album was full of discordant and unsettling sounds throughout.
Music for Insomnia was often challenging and occasionally ambient, but Aporia flips this dynamic. It’s much easier to listen to overall, but does get experimental at times. “Palinodes” is just 30 seconds of off-key fanfare. Similarly, “For Raymond Scott” is 30 seconds of rising and falling synthesizer notes. “Backhanded Cloud” opens with the album’s eeriest (and most irritating) sounds – think early Animal Collective – before settling down and becoming listenable. Just as you might be getting into the placid groove of the album, these tracks come to create waves in the most wince-inducing manner.
This isn’t an argument against rocking the boat at all, as Aporia is full of tracks that grip you in a more positive manner. Most prominently, Stevens sings only on “The Runaround,” which makes the track an instant standout on the otherwise instrumental album. His lyrics of “Give me a name, more than a flame, more than a metaphor, what are you waiting for, an open door?” aren’t as lucid or profound as he’s shown to be capable of, but that this sub-minute vocal delivery really comes piercing through strongly. “Afterword Alliance” ends with an industrial-sounding part that sounds straight out of Stevens’ masterpiece track “Impossible Soul” from The Age of Adz. “What it Takes” and “Glorious You” are nothing short of heavenly-sounding. “The Red Desert,” easily could have been the intro music to an 80s action flick, which isn’t surprising considering Stevens included parts of Blade Runner’s soundtrack on his inspiration playlist for Aporia. Continuing the retro theme, “Captain Praxis” could have come from an old arcade game.
Beyond these kernels of repulsion and delight, most of Aporia is just “there.” Its soundscapes are plenty lush, but there’s little substance beyond minimal beats and warm synthesizer tones. Ten of the tracks on the album are under two minutes long, and three of those are under a minute long. This might be a statement meant to raise the question “what is and isn’t an interlude?,” but in practice it means there are some skippable tracks here. For Brams, Aporia is certainly a step up from Music for Insomnia. For Stevens, Aporia once again proves his musical versatility, and he can now add “ambient new age” to his belt, but it doesn’t come near what he’s done previously.
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