Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, the National’s Bryce Dessner, and James McAlister kicked off the tour for their collaborative solar system-themed album, Planetarium, last night in Paris. Beyond hopping between planets with their own tracks, they covered one of David Bowie’s most iconic songs, one of the first that signaled the transcendent musical career to come, and the one that was the genesis of Major Tom, the figure musically borne of the newly opened existential wormhole of manned space travel — the 1969 track “Space Oddity.”
Watch:
The supergroup have a couple of U.S. dates planned as well — so if you want to hear Stevens singing songs about each planet, and perhaps an astronomical Bowie cover here and there, their upcoming dates/locations are:
7.18 – Brooklyn, NY, Celebrate Brooklyn! at Prospect Park7.20 – Los Angeles, CA, Hollywood Forever Cemetery
7.21 – Oakland, CA, Fox Theater
[Via Consequence of Sound]