If you’ve ever been asked who your favorite musician is and immediately cringed and thought, “How could I pick just one?” then you are not like me. I wouldn’t even let the question leave the lips of the asker, its easy, Sufjan Stevens. Everything from his stripped down acoustic work on Seven Swans to the full orchestra stylings of his 50 states project, it is all amazing. Okay, there was a classical album he put together last year that I wasn’t so fond of, but for those that heard it, it’s understandable.

Fellow Sufjan fans and I have anxiously been waiting for the follow up to his Illinois album for YEARS. Granted, he has put out a handful of music since that epic disc, but all with some asterick on their listing in the discography. Some were previously unreleased material, some Christmas music, some remixes. But what we’ve really been waiting for is another hand-crafted full length album.

There have been a couple live performances, of what we can only imagine are new songs, surface in the past year. And much of it, I have to say, seems to be tinged with an electronic flair that wasn’t seen in previous albums (I know, I know, the zodiac project was electronic, but that isn’t what I’m talking about). But the electronics were clearly of Sufjan’s own very unique style.

Today we get a little reprieve for our waiting madness. This morning Sufjan released a new EP, which although not the new epic album we’ve been waiting for, will be nice to hold us off until a hopeful late 2010 album release. Here is how the EP is described by Ashmatic Kitty Records:

All Delighted People is built around two different versions of Sufjan’s long-form epic ballad “All Delighted People,” a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon’s “Sounds of Silence.” Sounds delightful, yes! The song was originally workshopped on Sufjan’s previous tour in the fall of 2009. Other songs on the EP include the 17-minute guitar jam-for-single-mothers “Djohariah,” and the gothic piano ballad “The Owl and the Tanager,” a live-show mainstay (and Debbie Downer if you ask us; what’s it doing on a “Delighted” EP?).

You can pick up the EP from Bandcamp for a mere five bucks. Enjoy, it is amazing as always!

Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People (Original Version)

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Sufjan Stevens – Heirloom

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