新たな傑作誕生!スフィアン・スティーヴンス、待望の帰還!

ギター、ピアノ、バンジョーなど様々な楽器を取り入れ、その緻密繊細かつどこまでも温かいサウンドと世界観で、圧倒的な評価と人気を誇る唯一無二のアーティスト、スフィアン・スティーヴンス超待望のニュー・アルバム!
2005年に発表した『イリノイ』が世界的な大成功を収め、2000年代を代表する傑作アルバムとして今尚高い評価を浴びる彼。セイント・ヴィンセント(元スフィアンのバンド・メンバーでもある)やザ・ナショナルといった同世代アーティストからも絶大な支持を受けるカリスマSSWが、全米チャートTOP10入りした前作『ジ・エイジ・オブ・アッズ』以来約5年ぶりとなる新作アルバムをリリース!
両親の名をタイトルに冠し、ルーツであるフォーキーなサウンドへと立ち戻った本作は、S・キャリー、ローラ・ヴェアーズ、トーマス・バートレット(ダヴマン)といった盟友たちを迎え、セルフ・プロデュースで制作。パーソナルでありながらも、彼らしさ溢れる美しく温かいサウンドに乗せ、死や喪失、愛といった普遍的なテーマを歌いあげた本作は、まさに彼の新たな代表作であり、USインディ音楽界の金字塔となる傑作中の傑作が誕生!

発売・販売元 提供資料 （2015/01/19）

Rolling Stone - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[H]e joins Nick Drake and Elliott Smith in the canon of artists who channel suicidal thoughts into impossibly pretty songs. Stevens strips his sound far enough to reveal his deepest anguish..." Spin - "All throughout, the music manages to be both pleasant and devastating. Stevens still commandeers a plethora of instruments, and recorded a lot of the album by himself..." Entertainment Weekly - "With its quiet meditations on mental illness, God, and death, CARRIE is a hauntingly beautiful bummer." -- Grade: A- Paste (magazine) - "[A]n album less about the individual songs and more about the places that the songs take us, the questions that are asked, the irrefutable truths revealed, and the way all these elements work together." Pitchfork (Website) - "This record is a return to the sparse folk of Seven Swans, but with a decade's worth of honing and exploration packed into it. It already feels like his most classic and pure effort." Clash (Magazine) - "[A]n album of memories and stories....It's heavy, but so very beautiful."

Rovi

Nothing truly prepares anyone for the loss of a parent. No matter how aware one may be about the realities of disease and death, no matter what their attitude about their mother or father, experiencing the passing of the person who brought them into this world hits hard and deep, and the survivors are left to come to terms with their pain in their own ways. Sufjan Stevens is a songwriter and a musician, so it should come as no surprise that in the wake of the death of his mother Carrie in 2012, his grief took the form of a collection of songs. But 2015's Carrie & Lowell is not a simple homage to Stevens' mother and stepfather. Stevens had a difficult relationship with his mother that would defy a simple farewell; she left his father when Stevens was just a year old, and she was a random presence throughout much of his childhood. While there's deep and genuine love in Carrie & Lowell, there's also uncertainty, sadness, and brief but jagged bursts of anger; these songs speak of loss and heartache and the difficult push and pull of familial relationships, but they're also full of random memories, both pleasant and troubling, and they leap from reveries of family vacations faded by the passing of decades, to the immediate regrets of what was or wasn't said and done in the aftermath of death. Carrie & Lowell is about memory as much as mourning, and Stevens has drawn these songs in a purposefully elegant manner, with his introspection accompanied by beautiful but homespun melodies, and the arrangements and production only magnifying their dreamlike, whisper-quiet drift that strikes with an emotional force that a louder, more violent approach could not achieve. Carrie & Lowell is a heartfelt expression of love that is devoid of the slightest hint of sentimentality, and with these songs, Stevens strips his emotions bare and allows us all to be the audience for his anger, shame, and sense of loss as he pages through his memories of his family. Carrie & Lowell is the most harrowingly personal work Stevens has offered us to date; it also ranks with his most skillfully crafted albums despite its spartan approach, and it's a sometimes difficult but profoundly moving work. Stevens has offered us some fine albums in the past, but he's never made anything quite like Carrie & Lowell. ~ Mark Deming

Rovi