{"product_id":"sufjan-stevens-convocations-limited-edition-box-set","title":"Sufjan Stevens - Convocations (Limited Edition Box Set)","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cb data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eEdition:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e Limited Edition Box Set\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cb data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Asthmatic Kitty\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cb data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eDetails: \u003c\/b\u003eIt may be tempting to reduce Convocations into a longform ambient anomaly within Sufjan Stevens' vast catalogue. It is, however, neither an anomaly nor entirely ambient. This is not a side project. From his numerous dance scores for New York City Ballet to instrumental albums such as Enjoy Your Rabbit, Aporia, and The BQE, Stevens spends at least half his working life making largely instrumental music, as he has for decades. And though the first ten pieces, dubbed \"Meditations,\" unfurl as gorgeous states of reflective new-age grace, this is by no means an ambient enterprise. Stevens invokes the lessons of Morton Subotnick, Maryanne Amacher, Christian Fennesz, Brian Eno, and Wolfgang Voigt here. As musically erudite as it is emotionally experienced, Convocations can be dissonant, vertiginous, rhythmic, repetitive, urgent, or calm-that is, all the things we undergo when we inevitably live through loss, isolation, and anxiety.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIndeed, Convocations moves like a two-and-a-half-hour requiem mass for our present times of difficulty, it's 49 tracks allowing for all these feelings to be felt. The album is divided into five sonic cycles, each replicating a different stage of mourning. \"Meditations\" work toward acceptance and resolution, of coming to terms with the day's news even if it stings. The subsequent \"Lamentations\" slink, sputter, and sometimes grind, as sadness transmutes to anger and back again. The rhythmic drift and glitchy strata of \"Revelations\" allow for confusion and catharsis, of asking just why the world or the heavens have wronged us. With it's bright tones, occasional sweeps of strings, and scrambled voices, \"Celebrations\" offers furtive bits of fondness, though the nostalgia is never far removed from the news that prompted it. The final nine \"Incantations\" are lessons for those of us who remain, gorgeous and galvanizing reminders that our time here is as limited as the possibilities for how we spend it are infinite. Convocations occasionally soothes and sometimes hurts; when it's done, you're left with a renewed sense of wonder for being here at all. In fact, Stevens made Convocations in response to (and as an homage to) the life and death of his father, who died in September last year, two days following the release of The Ascension. It is, then, ultimately an album about loss, and an album that reflects a year in which we have all lost so much. One could easily compare this project to Stevens' album Carrie \u0026amp; Lowell, which he wrote following his mother's death. But this is something entirely different. A new time, a new season, a new life lost, a new reckoning, a new kind of isolation, grief, despair, frustration, confusion, and the search for happiness and hope for the future. This is not a personal record, but a universal one. Convocations is built on a shared experience that seeks to be honest about how complicated grief can be in these difficult times-the pain, the anxiety, the unknown, the absolute joy of memory. This is also an album made in lockdown, when we were all cloistered in whatever space we had. So long as the science and statistics hold, Convocations arrives just as we begin to emerge from a year whose losses we will calculate for a lifetime. It is, then, right on time, as we begin to process our grief and try to carry on with it. -Grayson Haver Currin\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eTracklist:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e1 Meditation I\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e2 Mediation II\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e3 Meditation III\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e4 Mediation IV\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e5 Meditation V\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e6 Meditation VI\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e7 Meditation VII\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e8 Meditation VIII\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e9 Meditation IX\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e10 Meditation X\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e11 Lamentation I\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e12 Lamentation II\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e13 Lamentation III\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e14 Lamentation IV\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e15 Lamentation V\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e16 Lamentation VI\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e17 Lamentation VII\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e18 Lamentation VIII\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e19 Lamentation IX\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e20 Lamentation X\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e21 Revelation I\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e22 Revelation II\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e23 Revelation III\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e24 Revelation IV\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e25 Revelation V\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e26 Revelation VI\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e27 Revelation VII\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e28 Revelation VIII\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e29 Revelation IX\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e30 Revelation X\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e31 Celebration I\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e32 Celebration II\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e33 Celebration III\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e34 Celebration IV\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e35 Celebration V\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e36 Celebration VI\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e37 Celebration VII\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e38 Celebration VIII\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e39 Celebration IX\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e40 Celebration X\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e41 Incantation I\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e42 Incantion II\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e43 Incantation III\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e44 Incantation IV\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e45 Incantation V\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e46 Incantation VI\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e47 Incantation VII\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e48 Incantation VIII\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"\u003e49 Incantation IX\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Pale Blue Dot Records","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43065531957310,"sku":"729920164844","price":79.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2059\/7683\/files\/75D90BC3-1741-453D-90FC-E40450F399AE.jpg?v=1783368551","url":"https:\/\/goldenapplecomics.com\/products\/sufjan-stevens-convocations-limited-edition-box-set","provider":"Golden Apple Comics","version":"1.0","type":"link"}