Pitchfork《Javelin》8.6 BNM 全文机翻
Sufjan’s masterful new album recalls his intimate singer-songwriter days. But it also draws on his entire catalog, his dazzling musicality, and his lifelong inquiries about love and devotion.
Sufjan精湛的新专辑让人想起了他亲密的歌手兼词曲作者的日子。但它也借鉴了他的整个目录，他耀眼的音乐性，以及他毕生对爱和奉献的追求。
Once when Sufjan Stevens was in college, he brought an injured crow to the biology lab to help save its life. “You are doing the universe a great favor,” a woman who ran an animal sanctuary told him once he called her to the scene. This is one of several stories Stevens tells in his 10-part essay included in the elaborate physical edition of his latest album, Javelin, all in service of exploring his ever-expanding definition of “love.” He writes in an inquisitive and self-aware tone, joking about how that experience with the crow provided “endless fodder” for his collegiate creative writing: “So much meaning, so little time,” he reflects. But if a young Sufjan once sought these encounters for their symbolic potential, the present-day writer of this essay, and of these songs, tells a more pressing story: even more meaning, even less time.
一次史蒂文斯上大学时，他把一只受伤的乌鸦带到生物实验室，帮助挽救它的生命。“你在帮宇宙一个大忙，”一位经营动物保护区的女士在他把她叫到现场时对他说。史蒂文斯在他最新专辑的精美实体版中讲述了几个故事，标枪他以好奇和自我意识的语气写作，开玩笑说与乌鸦的经历如何为他的大学创作提供了“无穷无尽的素材”：“意义如此之多，时间如此之短，”他反思道。但是，如果说一个年轻的苏夫詹曾经为了他们的象征性潜力而寻找这些邂逅，那么这篇文章和这些歌曲的当代作者则讲述了一个更紧迫的故事：更有意义，更少时间。
Over and over again on Javelin, Stevens contemplates the end. Sometimes his language, along with the hushed longing of his voice and the romantic sweep of his largely acoustic instrumentation, points toward the demise of a very long relationship. “I will always love you/But I cannot look at you,” he explains, tracing the broken logic governing the loss. “It’s a terrible thought to have and hold,” he admits after wishing ill to someone he once held dear. “Will anybody ever love me?” he asks in the aftermath.
《Javelin》一次次循规蹈矩， 史蒂文斯沉思着结局。有时，他的语言，连同他的声音平静的渴望和他的主要声学乐器的浪漫横扫，指向一个非常长期的关系的终结。“我将永远爱你，但我不能看着你，”他解释道，追溯着失去的破碎逻辑。“拥有和拥有是一个可怕的想法，”他在向他曾经心爱的人祝福后承认。“会有人爱我吗？”他在事后问道。
Instantly, the songwriting feels as raw and direct as ever. And indeed, Javelin is Stevens’ first proper album in a long time that seems designed with no grand concept to unify the material or inspire theatrical adaptations; no autobiographical insight to make you reconsider everything you thought you knew about him; no jarring musical change-ups to remind you he is a proud member of the Beyhive. Running under 45 minutes, Javelin begins with a deliberate inhale and ends with a cover of a deep cut from Neil Young’s best-selling album—a track that Stevens manages to make sound even sweeter and more hopeful than the 1972 original.
突然之间，写歌的感觉就像以前一样原始和直接。实际上，《Javelin》是史蒂文斯很长一段时间以来的第一张正式专辑，它的设计似乎没有宏大的概念来统一素材或激发戏剧改编；没有自传性的洞察力来让你重新考虑你认为你所知道的关于他的一切；没有不和谐的音乐变化来提醒你 他是一个Beyhive的骄傲成员在45分钟以内，《Javelin》以故意吸气开始，以尼尔杨史蒂文斯最畅销的专辑《Harvest》的一首歌结束专辑--史蒂文斯的歌曲使声音比1972年的原版更甜美、更有希望。
Like much of his defining work, Stevens wrote, recorded, and produced Javelin almost entirely alone, minus a few key appearances: some guitar from the National’s Bryce Dessner in the dazzling eight-minute “Shit Talk,” and frequent vocal accompaniment from a small choir that includes Megan Lui, Hannah Cohen, Pauline Delassus, Nedelle Torrisi, and the activist and writer adrienne maree brown. It’s got at least one song that instantly joins the ranks of his very best (“Will Anybody Ever Love Me?”) and plenty that draw direct lines to previous high-water marks, both thematically and musically. Centering the devotional melodies and heart-tugging intimacy that characterized his early masterpieces, it’s the type of record, two decades into an artist’s career, that tends to be called a “return-to-form,” suggesting an embrace of his strengths and a diminished instinct to surprise or provoke.
像他的许多决定性的作品一样，史蒂文斯写作、录制和制作标枪几乎完全是一个人，除了一些关键的出场：The National的吉他手 Bryce Dessner在令人眼花缭乱的8分钟《Shit Talk》和频繁的声乐伴奏，由一个小唱诗班，包括梅根吕，汉娜科恩，波琳Delassus，内德尔Torrisi，和活动家和作家adrienne maree brown。它至少有一首歌立即加入了他最好的歌曲的行列《Will Anybody Ever love me》？在主题和音乐上都有很多直接指向以前的高水位标志。他早期杰作的特点是虔诚的旋律和触动心灵的亲密关系，这种唱片在艺术家生涯的20年后，往往被称为“回归形式”，暗示了他对自己力量的拥抱和对惊喜或挑衅的本能的减弱。
But is anything ever so easy? The intricacy of Javelin is central to the essays and art accompanying the album: collages that overflow with faces of friends and family and heroes, paintings whose colors seem intended to combat Seasonal Affective Disorder. Many songs follow the path of these maximalist projects, beginning with gentle fingerpicking or piano before fireworking into electronic symphonies, orchestral crescendos, and choral rounds. The cumulative effect suggests that, while each story might begin as a stark, personal inquiry, Stevens strives to lead us somewhere divine, an altitude where our lives might appear more beautiful and still.
但有什么事这么容易吗?《Javelin》是专辑所附散文和艺术的核心：拼贴画充斥着朋友、家人和英雄的面孔，绘画的色彩似乎意在对抗季节性情感紊乱。许多歌曲遵循这些最大化项目的道路，从温柔的指摘或钢琴开始，然后再进入电子交响乐、管弦乐渐强和合唱回合。累积的效应表明，虽然每个故事都可能以一个鲜明的、个人的探究开始，史蒂文斯努力把我们带到一个神圣的地方，一个我们的生活可能会显得更加美丽和宁静的高度
It is through these trajectories that Javelin, despite its tone of endless searching, becomes one of Stevens’ most uplifting records. In “Should Have Known Better,” a sudden burst of Casio keyboards accompanied an optimistic glance to the next generation—a rare bright spot on 2015’s grief-stricken Carrie & Lowell; Javelin is filled with these kinds of turns. With the notable exception of “Shit Talk,” which dissolves into a long ambient coda that lingers like fog after heavy rain, each song ends somewhere brighter, fuller, and lusher than it began. “So You Are Tired,” which includes Stevens’ most heartbreaking set of lyrics since Carrie & Lowell, climaxes with a lapping wordless refrain from the choir. As his words zoom in closer to a separation (“So you are tired… of even my kiss”), the soothing, major-key resolution suggests an elemental sense of peace, leading to a blend of emotions that feels entirely new within his songbook.
正是通过这些轨迹 《标枪》尽管它的基调是无尽的寻找，成为史蒂文斯最令人振奋的记录之一。在《Should Have Known Better》的卡西欧键盘的突然爆发伴随着对下一代乐观的一瞥--这是在2015年发行的悲痛欲绝的《Carrie & Lowell》一个难得的亮点,《Javelin》充满了这种转折。除了《Shit Talk》这个明显的例外，它融化成一个长长的氛围结尾，像大雨后的雾一样挥之不去，每首歌的结尾都比开头更明亮、更丰满、更热烈。《So You Are Tired》中包含了史蒂文斯最令人心碎的歌词,Carrie & Lowell唱诗班的无言副歌达到了高潮。当他的话语越来越接近分离时（“所以你厌倦了……甚至是我的吻”），舒缓的、主要的决议暗示了一种基本的平静感，导致了一种情感的混合，在他的歌本中产生了从未有过的感受。
If there is anything Stevens learned from his last proper solo album, 2020’s pared-down synth-opus The Ascension, it is to tell these complex stories in simple ways. Take, for example, “My Red Little Fox,” a love song cast in waltz time, where Stevens uses one of his most classically beautiful melodies to express a series of escalating refrains: “Kiss me with the fire of gods,” he sings, then, “Kiss me like the wind,” and eventually, “Kiss me from within.” Here is the story of Javelin in miniature: The first two are seductions, spoken from person to person; the last is more like a prayer. If the lyrics on Javelin lack the proper-noun touchstones of Stevens’ story-songs, these ones gain authority from an intrinsic sense of self and place. They are approachable like pop songs, but delivered with the same precision as his folk confessionals. They break our hearts from within.
如果说史蒂文斯从他的上一张2010年代的个人专辑中学到了什么的话，《The Ascension》就是用简单的方式讲述这些复杂的故事。以《My Little Red Fox》为例，这是一首华尔兹时间的情歌，史蒂文斯用他最古典优美的旋律之一来表达一系列不断升级的叠句：“用神火吻我”，他唱，然后，“像风一样吻我”，最后，“从内心吻我”标枪缩影：前两个是诱惑，在人与人之间说；最后一个更像是祈祷。如果《Javelin》的歌词缺乏史蒂文斯故事歌曲的专有名词试金石，这些人从内在的自我和地方意识中获得权威。它们像流行歌曲一样平易近人，但却像他的民间忏悔一样精确。他们从内心伤了我们的心
“I know I’ve often been the poster child of pain, loss, and loneliness,” Stevens recently wrote to his fans. “But the past month has renewed my hope in humanity.” He was referring to his ongoing treatment for Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare auto-immune disorder that left him learning to walk again after losing feeling and mobility in his hands, arms, and legs. In the lead-up to Javelin, he has taken to Tumblr—long his preferred method of communication—to give frequent updates on his recovery. Sometimes he finds humor in the situation—a post about his dream wheels, the “Porsche 911 of wheelchairs”—and sometimes his words are more troubling (“Woke up feeling trapped”). But nearly every post ends with a positive affirmation, or at least a sign-off with a series of X’s and O’s.
史蒂文斯最近说：我知道我经常是痛苦、失落和孤独的典型代表写敬他的粉丝。“但是过去的一个月重新燃起了我对人性的希望。”他指的是他正在进行的处理格林-巴利综合征，一种罕见的自身免疫性疾病，使他在失去手、胳膊和腿的感觉和活动能力后重新学习走路。在准备标枪长期以来，他一直喜欢使用Tumblr来更新自己的康复情况。有时他在这种情况下发现幽默发布关于他的梦想轮子，“轮椅保时捷911”--有时他的话更令人不安（“醒来后感觉被困住了”）。但几乎每一篇帖子都以积极的肯定结尾，或者至少以一系列的x和o结尾。
This is the tone that Stevens now favors, something familiar and close, where the stakes are high and his sense of empathy is pervasive. This tenderness is partially how “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?,” with its Morrissey-level self-deprecation and whispered instructions to “pledge allegiance to my burning heart,” manages to feel less like a breakdown and more like time-lapse footage of a flower turning toward the sun. Throughout his career, Stevens has used the language of love songs to express religious devotion, and vice versa. Across Javelin, he seems intent on understanding and being understood, with the purpose of exposing the common thread between his pet subjects: raising the endless questions that lead us to seek meaning in one another, and rejoicing in the euphoria of sometimes finding it. And if it sounds like he is occasionally singing to us from rock bottom, it’s only so we can witness the steady ascent onward.
这是史蒂文斯现在喜欢的语气，一种熟悉而亲近的语气，其中的风险很高，他的同情心无处不在。这种温柔在一定程度上是“会有人爱我吗？”莫里西-级别的自嘲和低声指示“宣誓效忠我燃烧的心”，设法让人感觉不像是崩溃，而更像是一朵花转向太阳的延时镜头。在他的职业生涯中，史蒂文斯一直用情歌的语言来表达宗教虔诚，反之亦然《Javelin》中他似乎有意理解和被理解，目的是揭露他所宠爱的主题之间的共同点：提出无穷无尽的问题，导致我们在彼此身上寻找意义，并为有时找到意义而欣喜。如果听起来他偶尔会从谷底唱歌给我们听，那只是为了让我们见证他的稳步上升。
