Sufjan Stevens may have long reneged on his not-entirely-serious series of concept albums highlighting each of the 50 states of the US but at least Illinois, his breakthrough dispatch, is now being adapted as a stage musical. Meanwhile, Stevens racks up diverse albums and collaborations on alternative themes, including ballet soundtracks, 2020 mood suite The Ascension, the movie-influenced A Beginner’s Mind recorded with labelmate Angelo De Augustine, the sprawling instrumental catalogue Convocations, and a New-Agey collection Aporia recorded with his stepfather and label manager Lowell Brams, of Carrie & Lowell fame.

Don’t fancy any of these? Another work will be along soon enough. In fact, anyone hankering after Stevens’ autobiographical singer-songwriter craft is directed towards new album Javelin, a home-recorded repository for his elegantly anguished lyrics and DIY creativity.

Accompanied by a 48-page book of art and essays, this is a collection which satisfies in scale, and also in intimacy, as Stevens builds his poetic confessionals from the earth up to the heavens, with divine choral interventions from backing singers adrienne maree brown, Hannah Cohen, Pauline Delassus, Megan Lui and Nedelle Torrisi. Lui and Cohen are heard to clamorous effect on album opener ‘Goodbye, Evergreen’, a track which begins softly with Stevens’ trademark breathy vocals but quickly builds to an indie pop catharsis. There are desolate sentiments expressed but a brightness to the music.

The sweet chorale returns to dance around the front-porch picking of psychedelic troubadour number ‘A Running Start’. Stevens’ poetic lyrics have the ring of romance but one song later he is finding dramatic ways to paint himself unattractive, asking ‘Will Anybody Ever Love Me?’ (‘for good reasons, without grievance, not for sport’), the imagery (self-flagellation, cleansing, purging) in contrast to its gentle country-folk sigh.

There is a sense of resignation on recent single ‘So You Are Tired’, a piano and strings piece on which Stevens wrestles with the idea that he is not wanted anymore, and he comes round to a similar mindset on ‘Shit Talk’, an eight-minute break-up note featuring The National’s Bryce Dessner on guitar. As on the title track, there are bursts of violent imagery (‘our romantic second chance is dead, I buried it with the hatchet’), but the music is rich, layered and even soothing as it comes to rest on the mantra ‘hold me closely, hold me tightly, lest I fall’.

Arguably, this would have been the place to leave Javelin but Stevens instead chooses an intimate finish with a stripped-back cover of Neil Young’s ‘There’s A World’, divested of the original’s orchestral oomph, and even its melody, in favour of delicate picking and sighing vocals.

Javelin is released by Asthmatic Kitty on Friday 6 October.