Planetarium

Planetarium does the solar system justice with almost every conceivable sound--from metallic auto-tune to rippling organ, to angelic strings and forceful horns--from four powerful multi-instrumentalists at the top of their respective games.

For the most part, the record warrants its own expansiveness as themes of self-doubt, isolation and faith slowly supernova among dazzling ambient instrumentals, careening string sections and Sufjan’s warped vocals that bring harmony, hope and futurism to the cold, dense expanse of space.

Much more than The War Of The Worlds for indie kids, thoroughly recommended.

The more you listen, the more Planetarium recalls Stevens’s glitchy, Auto-Tuned The Age of Adz album. Myth and science, astrology and astronomy, the personal and the political, religion and the profane commingle.

The album has clearly been something of a labour of love for its creators, and feels remarkably homogenous for something produced by four highly individual minds via a mixture of live and studio performance over several years. If you like the sound of a big, camp, melodramatic slab of astrological sci-fi shot through with very earthly, twenty-first century hang-ups, Planetarium is a trip.

In its entirety, the ambition and scope of the project is matched by the combined talent and imagination of four musical friends whose association seemed to just emerge from the ether.

The result can’t help but sound as if the planets have aligned for Sufjan’s dream musical--but, if you’re a fan, you’ll know that’s glorious.

Muhly’s sweeping orchestral vista mid-section dominates “Pluto”; and Stevens’ furtive, autotuned description of “Saturn” as a “melancholy creature, paranoid secret” is rudely interrupted halfway through by a brash, bustling beat barging its way in like Donald Trump at a photoshoot. The “oracle ghost” “Venus”, meanwhile, is treated in more recognisably Sufjan style, in its exhumation of a youthful indiscretion at a summer camp, characteristically stirred into a wider lyrical compass.

We'll be lucky if the year yields another headphone album as sumptuous as this one. [Jul 2017, p.30]

Every listener will have to individually cherry pick the songs that work best for them, but these are the ones that best deliver on the possibilities of the album’s premise.

To be sure, Planetarium is not perfect. That it hangs together as well as it does is a testament to the considerable talents of the people who created it.

Although overly padded and repetitious at times, Planetarium is a poignant, adventurous, and highly promising debut; if the quartet can trim the fat in the future, they’ll truly reach their potential.

It’s not essential in the way Illinois is essential, but fans would be mugging themselves to not at least give it a whirl.

There are some lovely moments. ... But ultimately, the impossible ambition of Planetarium looms over every single moment. [Aug 2017, p.89]

It’s the slowest and least cluttered instrumentals that feel here the most effectively expansive, capturing the scope of the quartet’s chosen themes without collapsing beneath symbolism and meaning-making.

There’s undeniably magical moments here, and taken in small doses it can be a cosmic voyage. All in one go though, its sheer scale can be as daunting as the vastness of what lies beyond the stratosphere.

It's a sprawling effort with an over-70-minute running time, but also a haunting one, recommended for musically adventurous stargazers of all types.

Moments of spine-tingling transcendence outweigh those of aimless noodling. [Aug 2017, p.110]

It generally just plays like a wash of ideas without much of a through-line, despite its galaxy-driven conceit.