New Recordings

Pop

Sufjan Stevens took the Internet by surprise this month when, on the same day, he both announced and put on sale (for $5) this eight-cut, hour-long EP. The multitalented Brooklyn songwriter and conceptualist thereby left no time for his fans to wonder whether this release - which precedes a tour that will bring him to the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall Nov. 10 - is the full-fledged follow-up to 2005's Illinois, the second chapter in his acclaimed "50 States" series.

It isn't. It is, however, highly ambitious in its own not-so-focused way. The title song, which is included in both an 11-minute "original" and an eight-minute "classic rock" version, employs many trademark Stevens elements - chorales, shifting time signatures - while pushing his folk-baroque style in more experimental, prog-rock directions and quoting Simon and Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence" at several junctures.

When Stevens sings, "I know I'm still afraid of letting go of choices that I made," he may or may not be expressing ambivalence about ever saying he was going to make albums about all 50 states. But he makes clear here that he has plenty of non-geographical ideas. The most colossal cut is "Djohariah," a 17-minute, truly epic guitar jam full of gnarly improvisational excursions to make Neil Young envious. If that sounds too hard to swallow, All Delighted People also includes compact gems such as "Enchanting Ghost" and "Heirloom" that hark back to his earlier work.

- Dan DeLuca

Teenage Dream
(Capitol **1/2)

I have a friend who switches Katy Perry's "California Gurls" off whenever it comes on the car radio. At first I agreed - and I loved Perry's previous One of the Boys - but I've slowly given up resistance to the song of the summer. And I expect "Teenage Dream" and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" (first song to co-opt the phrase epic fail?) to follow suit. I've been absorbing them for only a week, and already their choruses sound as if they plan to stick around until 2011. But except for "The One That Got Away," which she calls Radiohead make-out music, and two bird-as-sex-metaphor songs, Perry's gotten a lot more forgettable since her less danceable debut, which was wittier and, sorry, "California," catchier.

- Dan Weiss

Strange Weather, Isn't It?
(Warp ***)