"Here we go into the grey": Moses Sumney's Song Writing of opacity in grae (2020).

Abstract

As a decidedly indeterminate confessional, græ is simultaneously a plea and evasion to be understood, one which finds Sumney articulating his own opacity. As theorised by the Martiniquan philosopher Edouard Glissant, opacity is to be understood as an unmeasured difference, a diversity that exceeds categorisation. While Western liberal society has moved to understand and acknowledge difference, this recognition often comes with ‘a requirement for transparency’: ultimately an negation of that very difference, under the sign of a false universality.