Wondering where that new Sufjan Stevens album is? That means you missed the singer's news that he's in the middle of producing a rodeo documentary, Round-Up, for which he and the Craig brothers whittled 60 hours of film into 75 minutes of slow-mo messages.
"The film is part of a much bigger argument about the domestication of plants and animals and man's relationship to the earth," he told The Playlist (via NME). "It's an existential issue that I think is crucial to have conversation about: man in modern society. We live in a world that is cruel to the earth itself. Man is a biological terrorist."
Pitchfork notes that Stevens — a prolific musician best known for his state-by-state project that was part-hoax, part-amazing, and who has taken a break from releases since 2010's The Age of Adz and a 2012 Christmas album — gave a more in-depth (and brain-twisting) explanation, comparing the project to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
"The BQE was a visual investigation of modern industry on the east coast, the effects of modernism on urban living," he said. "The second is man immersed in nature, and our film is a manifestation of a performance (the round-up) based in agricultural society. If it's about anything at all, it has to do with man in nature."
The 98-second trailer is basically a slow-motion portrait of #Merica, and promises live music from Stevens over the six-day screening at Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theater from Jan. 20–25. He'll be performing the score with the Yarn/Wire quartet.
The film footage was shot at the 2013 Pendleton Round-Up in Oregon. Check out the clip below:
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