Moses Sumney insists that love is not the answer; and he’s not too keen on traditional formations of masculinity. He seeks through his
music both to redefine gender roles and also to question the all-too-often-taken-for-granted social norm of the romantic couple. The latter, even more than the former, is unusual in a popular music context, since so much of that music is focused on love, sex, and romance. In his early releases – the EP Lamentations (2016), and the full-length album Aromanticism (2017) – Sumney rejects the clichés about love that are so prevalent both in pop music and in American culture more generally. Sumney notes in an interview that romance “can’t be separated from a patriarchal structure” that dominates and restricts our lives in so many respects. Indeed, “someone can love you and still be oppressing you, still not listen to your voice” (Cliff 2017). In these early works, Sumney both mourns, and yet finds comfort and strength in, a fundamental condition of existential loneliness.