Sufjan Stevens has been quite of late. Aside from the collection of Christmas records he released two years ago, it’s been four years since he’s last released a full length record. Thankfully, we can now hear his contribution to Red Hot’s Arthur Russell tribute comp Master Mix: Red Hot + Arthur Russell. For the collection he covered Russell’s “A Little Lost.” Here’s what he had to say about the cover:
“I like ‘A Little Lost’ because it’s all about kissing. I love kissing. If I could kiss all day, I would. I can’t stop thinking about kissing. I like kissing more than sex because there’s no end to it. You can kiss forever. You can kiss yourself into oblivion. You can kiss all over the body. You can kiss yourself to sleep. And when you wake up, you can’t stop thinking about kissing. Dammit, I can’t get anything done because I’m so busy thinking about kissing. Kissing is madness! But it’s absolute paradise, if you can find a good kisser.
Arthur’s music is all over the place, but most of it seems to be about embracing darkness (loneliness) and ambiguity (confusion) with the biggest bear hug in the world. Catharsis! He didn’t give a shit about fads or fashion even as he was influenced by popular music, club music, and all that shitty art music at the Kitchen. He kind of cobbled it all together to create his own diverse musical language, He was funny as shit (a wordsmith, a master of the innuendo), but also dead serious (and blunt) about the deepness of his feelings, unafraid to express affection in his songs, without pandering or cliche. Arthur was real as shit. You can’t fake realness.”
The comp is out 10/21 on Yep Roc. You can pre-order it from iTunes.
