Welcome Wagon are a devout pair of pastors from the Midwestern United States. Reverend Thomas Vito Aiuto and his wife Monique make music together 'to get to know the Lord and each other better'. A perfect fit for self-proclaimed anthropologist Sufjan Stevens, who has already proven to have a fascination for everyday (and less everyday) America with his ambitious albums Greetings From Michigan and
… Illinoise. Like a contemporary Alan Lomax, he took care of the couple. But Stevens did more than capture their charmingly uneducated harmony vocals. In improvised domestic recording sessions he provided the songs with his well-known orchestral arrangements, creating a 'new kind of church music', folky and pastoral at the same time. A noble project that sounds particularly convincing in the first tracks of the album. But soon the record loses momentum and the songs, including cover versions of Half A Person (The Smiths) and Jesus (Velvet Underground), become a bit mundane. A nice sweetener for the fans of Sufjan, but most of The Welcome Wagon's songs clearly lose out to the man's own compositions. (MS)more
