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Sufjan Stevens

If I told you about a project to record 50 albums, one for every state of America , you’d probably imagine that I’d be talking about a 70’s Progressive-Rock act with overblown pretensions and an impossibly grand vision of their music. It certainly doesn’t sound like the project of a quetly spoken folk musician. It is, however, the current goal of a Detroit-born musician whose part of the ‘New Weird America’ folk movement.

It’s Devendra Barnhart who immediately comes to mind when the current fascination for folk music in America is mentioned, and journalists usually refer to the scene as ‘Devendra Barnhart and the New Folk movement.’ Playing king to Joanna Newsome’s queen, they’re depicted as the duo at the centre of a large number of bands, often with many overlapping members, currently causing a stir. However, Devendra had better watch out. Sufjan Stevens has released an album so good that it looks set to win him the folk-king’s crown.

Sufjan’s latest LP (pronounced SOOF-yon, by the way) is entitled Illinoise, and is the second in his ’50 States’ project’. IRegardless of whether or not he ever finishes the project (he sometimes treats the idea as one big joke in interviews), Stevens has managed to come up with an album that trumps all expectations. Up until now it’s been easy to see him simply following musically in the footsteps of Neil Young, who is obviously a great influence for the young musician. However, Illinoise sees him producing folk-inspired music that is often impossible to classify.

The opening track of the album is also one of its greatest moments, standing at just two minutes long. The most immediate comparison is minimalist composer Phillip Glass, who used classical instruments to perform a kind of music based on repetition, with only slight changes to the basic theme in the course of a song or performance. The opening track certainly doesn’t sound much like folk music, even employing an odd time signature and a repeated piano motif that Glass would be proud of.

The whole album is in fact lusly orchestrated, making use of a huge range on instruments and seemingly vast choirs. It sounds a long way from Sufjan’s last release, entitled Seven Swans. Mostly guitar or banjo and voice, despite being packed full of great songs, the album was rather embarrassingly a collection of Christian Folk songs.

With Illinoise, though Sufjan hasn’t given up on his subtle expressions of faith, the Christian Folk is thankfully out of the window. Instead, we’re presented with songs which explore the state of Illinoise. The cities of Chicago, Decatur and Jacksonville, all get a mention, as does the poet Carl Sandburg and, in another stand-out track on the album, serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who was apparently the role model for Stephen King’s killer clown in the novel ‘It’. Yikes.

In it’s multi-textured approach and use of a whole range of instruments, Illinoise sometimes sounds like The Flaming Lips would if they started performing folk music. The only point where Sufjan’s folk inentions really shine through is in the song ‘ Jacksonville ’, which closely resembles Niel Young’s song ‘Old Man’ from the classic album ‘Harvest’.

It’s also worth taking a look at the titles to the tracks, which tend to be short essays themseleve. They include the likes of: “A Short Reprise for Mary Todd, Who Went Insane But for Very Good Reasons”, “They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhhh” and “The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue To Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!’” Whatever you say, Sufjan, whatever you say…