moses sumney needs a thread, dammit!

didn't think much of Aromanticism first time around, but it has completely taken over my life in the past few weeks.

― Cat Person

Same for me. I've been listening to it obsessively over the last week. Probably the most beautiful record of the year.

tiny desk concert (lol) was what finally won me over i think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4-0Q8W8Nb0

I've been posting about out on the 'underrated' threads, it's fantastic.

I finally got around to this last week and it's fantastic. I still need to spend more time with it but Lonely World is a real standout

listened to this while cooking last night and it's very very pretty. even a bit like Jeff Buckley at one point. I didn't really catch a single lyric but definitely want to revisit
I haven't paid attention to them in about a decade so it was also genuinely surprising to me that Jagjaguwar put this and the Jamila Woods album out

Tiny Desk concert is stunning, ty.

An amazing record. I was rotely perusing the pitchfork top 10 and almost didn't even give this one a play because most of their other picks couldn't hold my attention. This is way beautiful.

First exposure to Moses Sumney was this video of him covering one of my favorite Elliott Smith songs. Saw it maybe a year ago, thought he was just some LA open mic dude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFfpoPcInuA

Got the new record for review this year and was pretty stunned. His cover of "O Superman" is fantastic, too. He was great at the p4k 21 show, had the line of the night: "Happy birthday, Pitchfork... 21 years of making dreams and destroying lives." He covered a Bjork song I didn't recognize. So much better than Alex G, who followed him (zzzzz....). Wish he played before Avey Tare & Panda Bear.

I like Alex G a lot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysb4TjuC5GM

New single is a left-turn but pretty great, very reminiscent of Algiers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQpUy35_xgQ

I love this Bjork cover that flappy bird mentioned too, his voice is seriously incredible

love the new one

wonder who he's subtweeting

https://i.ibb.co/9rR624w/Screen-Shot-2018-12-16-at-11-14-16-PM.png

I sincerely can't think of anyone, but those sorts of subtweets tend to read to me like "I put out something this year and am having end-of-year anxiety as my EPs importance is measured and weighed" which is a real and terrifying anxiety

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Cq8zRq0G9I

double album græ out next year and the lead single sounds pretty great

yess double album is great news, especially if all the songs are as lush and haunting as the new one.

Virile is amazing! Can't wait for the (double!!!) album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dta4heZacZE

gorgeous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VFoh5AbpBM

surely one of my most anticipated albums this year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQElotqs560

a live performance of another new track though it's a "reimagination" so idk how much it'll resemble the studio version. regardless i love it

Not new but his feature on last year's James Blake album is spine-chilling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEEVki6ofwc

As is the even less new track with Tessa Thompson from the Creed soundtrack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkPzH4kOPTc

New album this month, right?

half this month and half in may

first half of the album is out now and it sounds great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP7aUoWnbB4

highlight on first listen was "neither/nor"

this album is really overwhelmingly gorgeous and it's hard to believe there's still a second half coming in a few months. already a really remarkable and expansive neo-soul album as it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTtGQBPzSs0

Yesss, I already know this is going to be a weekend morning standard, and I genuinely look forward to listening to it tens of times this year.

it's album of the year material

I'm tempted to wait until the whole thing is out in May, but I know I won't be able to hold off.

it's absolutely worth a listen now, part 1 is expansive and substantial enough to be one of the best albums of the year on its own

Yeah, seems clear from the available 65% that this will be the best album ever. I just returned from quite a walk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D386dU9thiA

super excited for pt 2 to finally be out this week, this latest single is as fantastic as the rest

album of the year, easily

For sure! Current fave might be "Conveyor" -- I went back to the performance above and it's amazingly close actually. Hard to believe this music could be played live.

i saw him play in singapore to an indifferent festival crowd in ... 2018? .. and he and his band were just superlative. but a lot more kraut and a lot more groove and a lot more synth than the record had let me to expect. the band looked like nordic metal guys or something, or maybe i just thought that because one of them had the same midi saxophone thing the guy in shining uses

i haven't seen him live or seen much footage of his live shows, but that doesn't really surprise me since the new record pushes much further in those sort of directions (also neo-soul) than aromanticism did

The Bliss Album...?: Fury Road

I'm....trying to admire this album, but vocal acrobatics coupled with its length have conspired to give me headaches every time I try finishing it.

maybe just try listening to just the first part to get into it because that's a fully-formed masterpiece on its own

i'd been thinking that maybe the split-release strategy didn't do it any favours but maybe it did help actually because it made it much more approachable? it's just odd because the second half, while still very good, is much quieter and less substantial, with the best tracks ("me in 20 years" and "bless me") being already familiar as pre-release singles. i still really love it as a whole though

I liked Aromanticism but this one just left me cold. I prefer his singing when he dials it down.

The first part two weeks ago is what gave me trouble. I dig "Neither/Nor" and "Conveyor" but, man, it's exhausting.

I agree with ufo. An ambitious, complex, and often stunning confluence of pop, classical, jazz, r&b, and electronic. One of my favorite songs, "Colouour," has elements of all 5. I hear a lot of James Blake (a collaborator) and Thom Yorke: "boxes" recalls Amnesiac. I have tried to listen to this while working or reading, but this is music that commands my attention and sounds wholly different through headphones.

If I have a complaint, it's that I have not found myself wanting to play it much. Feels like an undertaking each time.

right? i'm not positive i really like it so much as i admire it. and to confirm, i'd need to listen to it again.
this would be a lot easier to determine if he was touring and i could hear it live.

yeah this guy is in one ear out the other territory for sure, overwrought and hookless

I guess I could have anticipated these reactions but really can't relate. Admiration requires distance, and this album's so close when it's playing. Also, it gives me so much energy, and requires fairly little.

crossposted from sufjan thread
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5vT6l-NDF4

Needs more Sumney, but its a nice enough Sufjan breathy vocal cut

that's from an EP where moses sumney got a bunch of people (including sufjan) to each cover "make out in my car"

wow I fucking love this album, it's just so dense and endlessly interesting. It's like Tales from Topographic Oceans but good?

He has a thing from the Proms on TV tonight and it's really very good, he did a version of Bjork's Come To Me which just blew me away.

Years late to him but have been diving in after reading this "things I like" feature:

On my radar: Moses Sumney’s cultural highlights https://t.co/tpy5f2oYuN

— The Guardian (@guardian) January 1, 2022

Oh, and looks like this hasn't been shared here yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX47qMIw_2o

oh i'd been meaning to get around to that, thanks for the reminder

these versions are really immense and muscular

the t-pain cover is a joy

Thanks for posting, as I'd forgotten about this and had meant to watch it

Beautifully shot, super unique, and many great performances. "Cut Me" was a highlight. Half the time I think this guy is on another level, making really inspired, interesting music. The other half I think his vocal phrasings are too complex, his songs too detached from traditional song structures, etc. Whole thing makes me think of Bjork.

finally watched Blackalachia, so great

Yeah. What I said over on Hype and Slander for your EOY nominations:

Some kind of Special Citation, Laurie Anderson Award, whatever you want to call it, should go to Moses Sumney, director and star ov film x album Live From Blackalachia, which takes place during a day and evening in the mountains of North Carolina---no audience, so no "How ya doin Blackalachia" etc., but you are there. A seven-piece band total, I think (three horn players eventually appear in the gloaming, all in good time), opening with what I think of as psych metal then losing me a little in second quarter diffusion of prog-associated balladry, but coming back strong and then some with the rest, incl. slow motion acrobatics of falsetto, my least favorite (and then some) form of singing--even got a little tired of it on prev. Sumney albums---but this is incredible, incl even some use of microtones? reminding me of Arthur Russell's cello bow at times---and visuals are totally appropriate at all times---meant to compare w audio-only, as usual, but this time I couldn't look away.
(Only thing comparable in recent years: The Chicks' Gaslighter, with commissioned videos by female directors for each track, but those are discrete, while this is seamless---despite cut-ins of "low-fi video," like it says in the credits, also times of day and evening can switch, never twitch.)

march 30 in brooklyn
https://www.bam.org/moses-sumney

with l'rain even

Yeah saw Hanif Abdurraqib tweet about his curated Music at BAM, which looks really great

https://www.bam.org/music-at-bam

i have tix to this and dawn, considering little simz which doesn't seem to be selling too briskly

unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to go to this (now sold out) Moses Sumney show with L'Rain at BAM in Brooklyn on Wednesday, March 30 at 8pm.
I got two balcony seats, would let them go for less than i paid for them if there are ILXORS who are into it?

https://www.bam.org/moses-sumney

MOSES SUMNEY ANNOUNCES LIVE CONCERT FILM, RELEASES BJÖRK COVER
A PERFORMANCE IN V ACTS ARRIVING NEXT WEEK

https://files.constantcontact.com/ce05d74a001/45834af4-5291-44a3-ba57-c20d5ce2892c.jpg?rdr=true

A Performance In V Acts (Trailer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIYvAnYlgL0

Come to Me" (Björk Cover) & "Doomed" (Live)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnOURBw6kXk

August 24, 2022) - Moses Sumney returns to announce A Performance In V Acts, a live concert film that captures his October 31, 2021 performance at the Ford Theater in Los Angeles, with a trailer and clip of him performing fan-favorite "Doomed" along with his cover of Björk's "Come to Me." The film, made possible in partnership with YouTube's Black Voices Fund, arrives in full next week on Wednesday, August 31st.

When sharing the film's trailer on Instagram, Sumney elaborated:

"A Performance in V Acts marks the official end of the græ album cycle. It's a capsule of our headline show since we will not be touring the album after all. This film also ushers in a new period of creativity for me – one in which I take a continued break from making albums and touring music to focus on other disciplines."

The film's announcement arrives on the heels of HBO announcing Sumney as a cast member on the The Idol, the forthcoming series created by Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye and Euphoria creator/director Sam Levinson. Sumney's announcement came this past Sunday when HBO formally shared the show's second official teaser on the heels of The Weeknd debuting it on Saturday evening during the Las Vegas stop of his After Hours Til Dawn tour.

Watch the trailer for A Performance In V Acts above now along with the performance of "Come to Me" and "Doomed," and turn on notifications via the bell at the trailer link to be alerted for the premiere.

Moses Sumney

A Performance V Acts

Tuntum

August 31st 2022

ACT I: Logos

insula

Virile

Conveyor

Quarrel

ACT II: Ethos

Colouour

In Bloom

Cut me

Bless me

ACT III: Pathos

Bystanders

Me in 20 Years

Gagarin

ACT IV: Pathos

Come to Me (Björk cover)

Doomed

ACT V: ENCORE

Plastic

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since we will not be touring the album after all.