New Sufjan: “The Henney Buggy Band”
God I’d kill to post this, but this is officially a Stereogum premier, so please (please) go here to download this wonderful track. This is our third taste of The Avalanche, and while the title track is quite nice, “Adlai Stevenson” (downloadable below, in case you missed it) left a good amount to be desired and surely had some questioning how the rest of The Avalanche will turn out, but “The Henney Buggy Band” offers plenty of reassurance. Stereogum even begs the question, “Could Avalanche pull of some consecutive album-of-the-year Tom Hanks-style shit?”. To be honest though, if the 18 other tracks we’re yet to hear off of this album are all this good, then the answer’s probably yes.
I really can’t fathom why this was left off of Illinoise, as it’s just as good as the vast majority of that album. That descending horn refrain, the group backing vocals, the part where the instrumentation drops out for a beat and he says “the catastrophic smile” and rocks that falsetto; seriously, this is so good. But yeah, just go, now. Seriously, bye.
UPDATE: “The Avalanche” and “Adlai Stevenson” have been removed at the label’s request. Also, please note that the acoustic version of “Chicago” posted below is not the version that will be on The Avalanche, rather it is a live recording from a KCRW session last summer, though I imagine the album version won’t be drastically different (I mean, acoustic is acoustic).
Previous MP3s:
“The Avalanche” - Sufjan Stevens [link removed]
“Chicago” (Acoustic) - Sufjan Stevens [highly recommended]
“Adlai Stevenson” - Sufjan Stevens [link removed]