Listen to Paul Simon’s new Stranger To Stranger album via NPR Music

Paul Simon | Photo by Myrna Suarez
Paul Simon releases his new album, Stranger To Stranger, on Friday, June 3rd. WXPN Welcomes Simon to the Mann Center on Saturday, June 25th. The singer-songwriter legend’s new album is available to listen to via NPR Music.

Tom Moon, writing about Simon’s 13th solo album for NPR had this to say about the album:

It’s more opaque than Simon’s recent works, less forthright and declarative, less locked onto linear tracks. Its tales unfold in shards and mumbled asides, oddly unsettling repeated phrases and strange prophecies. These don’t always seem haunting at the start, but they become that way — as the details fill in, or don’t, as Simon’s telegraphic shorthand implies multiple meanings. You can’t read the lyrics to these songs and expect to “get” them; you have to surrender to the slurpy backward vocals, the sharp crack of drumsticks, the whole experience.

Stranger To Stranger follows up Simon’s 2013 release, So Beautiful Or So What. Moon continues:

Even within the few Stranger To Stranger songs that hearken back to moods and chord sequences Simon has used before, there’s no rewriting going on. His music still pulses with the feeling of invention; he’s still discovering new ways to communicate, new percussive beats, challenging new frameworks for observations about joy, death and everything in between. These new songs are not as easily parsed as “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” but that doesn’t mean they’re not as artful. They’re just remedies and salves of a different sort. They’re just the isolated vision-bursts and flashes of clarity that sometimes occur when you look up and realize you’re trapped in the middle of a parade.

Below, listen to Simon’s new album. Go to the XPN Concert Calendar for tickets and more information about Simon’s show at The Mann on June 25th.