According to the dictionary, an “aromantic” is someone who doesn’t experience romantic attraction. Moses Sumney tackles exactly this concept in his debut album, Aromanticism, out now via Jagjaguwar. The twenty-seven-year-old American singer/songwriter, born to Ghanaian pastors, explained to Stereogum that,
I want to challenge everything, everything we’ve been told, everything we think is a societal norm. Societal norms around romance to me felt really constricting and very narrow, especially for a time that feels like it’s so obsessed with dismantling societal practices that are considered the right way to do anything. But I feel like the conversation around romance was still stiff. I wanted to observe that, obviously through my personal life, but I was thinking about it in a social way. And to just kind of write about something that no one else is really writing about. Obviously people have written about dark shit or sad feelings or whatever forever, but I wanted to contextualize it in a way that felt new.
Aromanticism is a new vision of songwriting, a trip into contemporary loneliness, and proof that, nowadays, every man is an island. And it’s all delivered by one of the best voices around, capable of making such dark times into a celestial chant that offers hope.
Watch two videos off of the debut album below!
