His celestial falsetto and otherworldly sound have bewitched everyone from
Stephen Colbert to Solange. Now, his second album is about to send him stratospheric
On a nippy, drizzly February afternoon in Brooklyn, Moses Sumney is trying to track down some glasses he lost across town. Using an app, he is attempting to convince a stranger named Frank to deliver them to him. It is distracting him. Every time his phone buzzes, he is hoping it’s a status report. “I just want to know if he’s actually doing it, or if I have to do it myself – like everything else!” he blurts out, the last three words crescendoing theatrically. His comment is telling: for the last several years, the 28-year-old singer-songwriter and polymath has become used to doing it all.
Sumney is preparing to release his highly anticipated second album, græ, which will complete his evolution from highly publicised indie prospect to singular musical frontiersman. His songs actively defy classification, pushing the boundaries of soul, jazz and alt-rock, while maximising a bewitching voice. His debut album, 2017’s Aromanticism, an inquisitive reimagining of what lovelessness can mean, was hailed by critics as one of the year’s best; græ takes things further, offering up Sumney’s most immersive
music yet. It is also his most uncompromising work, not a double album but one album split in half, each comprising boundary-pushing sounds that exist in the margins.