Sufjan Stevens Albums (7)
What The Critics Say
After successfully navigating his way into the mainstream with 2005's epic Illinoise, ultra-prolific indie pop prince Sufjan Stevens had no intention of laying low. Instead, he released a set of Illinoise outtakes, a five-disc collection of Christmas songs, and staged a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway" that included a self-made Super 8 mm film, a full orchestra, and a small army of hula hoopers performing live in front of a sold-out Brooklyn Academy of Music. While it could be argued that the ambitious BQE serves as the "New York" chapter in his abandoned 50 states project, it hardly fits in with the other two entries. Many pop musicians have ventured into the classical realm (David Byrne, Paul McCartney, Roger Waters, Elvis Costello, to name a few), but Stevens had already been dabbling in strings, woodwinds, and horns quite admirably since his lo-fi 2000 debut. Closer to the Godfrey Reggio/Philip Glass collaboration Koyaanisqatsi than it is to Byrne's The Forest, fans of the liberal, staccato woodwinds that peppered Illinoise will find much of the BQE familiar. As always, Stevens' melodies are circular, occasionally precious, and often dissonant, but they are presented here with a maturity that will no doubt turn more than a few heads in the classical community, while simultaneously turning some away in the indie pop world. The package itself is truly impressive, boasting a highly stylized Japanese pop art-inspired jacket, a 40-page booklet, a stereoscopic 3D View-Master reel and a DVD of the Super 8 mm film that accompanied the performance. As lyrical a musician as he is, without his commanding use of language (the song cycle is entirely instrumental), the BQE loses some momentum near the end, but by then it's become clear that, as is the case with all of his projects, the term "half-assed" does not apply. ~ James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide
'The Avalanche: Outtakes & Extras from the Illinois Album'
Release Date 7/10/2006
Tracks 21
Label Spunk
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Sufjan Stevens' Come on Feel the Illinoise was a long, gorgeous, and occasionally convoluted kaleidoscope of folk, pop, and orchestral rock fused with personal regional history that somehow managed to lure listeners of all ages and genre allegiances into its pompon-wielding arms. Like Illinois, The Avalanche -- leave it to Stevens to release a 21-track collection of outtakes and extras from a record that boasted 22 -- is stuffed with a surplus of unnecessary and pretentiously titled instrumental Band-Aids like "Vivian Girls Are Visited in the Night by Saint Dargarius and His Squadron of Benelovent Butterflies," "The Mistress Witch from McClure (Or, the Mind That Knows Itself)," and "The Palm Sunday Tornado Hits Crystal Lake" that would serve more purpose on an early-'70s Yes album than they do here, but they're augmented by some truly noteworthy songs that prove Stevens' prolificacy is as much a byproduct of his obvious gifts as a writer as it is by his need to record every idea that pops into his head. Opening with the title cut, a loose, banjo-driven ballad that develops into a pulsing day drive from the East Coast to the Midwest (The Avalanche is named for a car, not the terrifying mass of ice, snow, earth, and rock that swallows numerous skiers each year), Stevens constructed an alternate version of Illinois that is almost as good as the original. Shades of Stereolab pepper both the manic "Dear Mr. Supercomputer" and the nostalgic "Adlai Stevenson," while the elegiac "No Man's Land" echoes the sense of discovery that fueled Illinois' "Chicago," the latter of which appears three times in various disguises throughout the record. The Avalanche slows down considerably near the record's end, but so did Illinois, making an even better case for the "Super Director's Cut" that would fuse both albums into one mammoth slice of esoteric Americana pie. ~ James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
With two states down and only 48 to go, Sufjan Stevens' ambitious musical map of the Unites States of America should be completed -- if he puts out one a year -- sometime around 2053. It's a daunting task (and not an entirely original one at that), but if each subsequent record is as good as Illinois, fans who live long enough to witness the project's completion will no doubt find themselves to be scholars of both state history and its narrator's shape-shifting soul. Stevens' soulful folk epics, as played by his signature mini-orchestra, have changed little since his 2003 foray into Michigan -- a charge that may cause some grumbling among that album's detractors -- but there's a newfound optimism that runs through much of Illinois that echoes the state's "Gateway to the West" pioneering spirit. Glorious road trip-ready cuts like "The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts," "Come On! Feel the Illinoise!," and "Chicago" have an expansiveness that radiates with the ballast of history and the promise of new beginnings. Stevens has done his research, with references to everyone from Abe Lincoln, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the ghost of Carl Sandburg to John Wayne Gacy -- the latter provides one the song cycle's most affecting moments. The lush (yet still distinctly lo-fi) indie pop melodies draw as much from classic rock as they do progressive folk. "Jacksonville," with its four-chord banjo lurch, mines "Old Man"-era Neil Young, disco strings dance around "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!," while the rousing pre-finale "The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders" is pure Peanuts-infused Vince Guaraldi as filtered through the ambiguous kaleidoscope of Danielson Famile spiritualism. There's a distinct community theater vibe to the whole affair that may or may not be the result of numerous photo shoots in which the players are dressed in adult-style Boy Scout uniforms -- it brings to mind the Blaine Players from Christopher Guest's small-town theater parody Waiting for Guffman -- but the majority of Illinois is alarmingly earnest. Stevens may be a snake-oil salesman, but he's got pretty good stuff, and like many of history's most untrustworthy wordsmiths, he somehow manages to switch the opportunist off and turn on the human being each time the listener gets suspicious of his intentions. ~ James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After completing the first installment of his planned series of 50 records -- one album dedicated to each state in the U.S. -- indie folk overachiever Sufjan Stevens returns with Seven Swans, a collection of stripped-down, introspective musings on life, love, and faith that chart the geographic location of the heart and soul. Many of these themes were dealt with eloquently on Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State, presenting the singer/multi-instrumentalist as a first-rate interpreter of the human condition, as well as a gifted musician. The 12 tracks on Swans yield the same bounty, but with a leaner arsenal, due to Stevens' sparse arrangements and production from Danielson Famile mastermind Daniel Smith. Fellow Famile members Elin, Megan, David, and Andrew -- who also appeared on The Great Lakes State -- lend their vocal and percussion talents to the mix, resulting in a surreal campfire environment that's part confessional and part processional. Beginning with the gorgeously titled "All the Trees in the Field Will Clap Their Hands," Stevens saunters out of the gate with nary an overdub to be heard, letting the banjo lead the parade, slowly picking up piano, percussion, and the angelic voices of Megan and Elin before disappearing over the hilltop. He channels Bert Jansch on the love song "The Dress Looks Nice on You" and Eric Matthews on "To Be Alone With You," striking a winning balance of '60s British folk and indie Americana. Like the Violent Femmes' seminal pseudo-Christian masterpiece, Hallowed Ground, Seven Swans treats religion with simplicity and sincerity, approaching the subject with an almost feverish peacefulness. "Abraham," "We Won't Need Legs to Stand," and "He Woke Me Up Again," with its fiery, overdriven organ, are all effective tomes of the singer's faith, but that faith can be tested. Stevens is quite aware of the dark, and no more so than on the Flannery O'Connor-inspired "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," a first-person murder narrative that reveals a subtle current of menace only hinted at in the earlier portion of the record. Like faith, these songs require patience, as their almost mantra-like arcs take their time to fully form. By the time he reaches the spirited closer, "Transfiguration," an affirming take on the Gospels that reaches an almost Polyphonic Spree crescendo, the listener has no choice but to conform -- if only for the length of the record -- to the writer's unabashed spirituality, and at just under 45 minutes, it's an easy choice to make. ~ James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide
'Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State'
Release Date 1/1/2003
Tracks 15
Label Asthmatic Kitty
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Sufjan Stevens's third album is a charming homage to his home state of Michigan. Filled with heartbreak, the album cryptically addresses Stevens' frustration with the notorious job market in the city of Flint in a lovely ballad that opens the record, and documents the depressing struggle the city of Detroit has fought to once again attain the elegance it had prior to the riots in the late '60s; however, it also touches on a brighter side, as in the cascading "Say Yes! to M!ch!gan!" Its title is a reference to the campaign adopted by the state in the 1980s and serves as the centerpiece as well as Stevens' attachment and amour for the state he is from. Musically, Stevens often plays his Jim O'Rourke and Stereolab cards, riffing along with complex polyphony in building loops and dynamics, but he also frequently imports lightly strummed guitars and stark banjo picking to break up the album and give it a rustic northern folk aesthetic. Stevens comfortably handles nearly every instrument on the album -- an impressive task that includes various keyboards, woodwinds, guitars, and percussions -- but also enlisted the help of Megan, Elin, and Daniel Smith from the Danielson Famile to help out with vocal duties, and the outcome is a haunting and hypnotic studio opus certainly worth getting lost in. ~ Gregory McIntosh, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Sufjan Stevens' second release, Enjoy Your Rabbit, is a vast departure from the pan-ethnic folk of his debut. Using almost no exterior samples, Stevens crafts an electronic, all-"instrumental" song cycle based on the symbols of the Chinese zodiac. While working within these considerably narrower confines, he still maps out a wide musical territory by using each symbol as a mode, each one exploring different textures and tempos and, in the process, evoking a surprising array of moods. At times eerie and ominous like a backwoods Autechre, other times sounding like more club-oriented fare, Stevens sometimes trades in bloops and bleeps for oblique glitches and crackles, but the underlying guiding principle is wide-eyed exploration that fills nearly every track with a sense of playfulness. Enjoy Your Rabbit never gets too serious, although at times it's very intense. Many tracks even have some sort of musical pun working just under the surface; for instance, "Year of the Horse" is by far the longest, clocking in at over 13 minutes, and "Year of the Ox" has a regular, heavy thudding beat. ~ Jason Nickey, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The debut disc from this former member of the folk group Marzuki and sometimes Danielson Famile contributor stakes out some wide musical and thematic territory. Although it was recorded on four-track, it transcends the confines of lo-fi and can even seem sonically overambitious at times. Exploring a terrain that can only be called pan-ethnic folk, A Sun Came begins with Celtic overtones before traveling east in a global musical study. Indian, Middle Eastern, Far Eastern, American folk, and instruments ranging from banjo and sitar to oboe and xylophone (most of which are played by Stevens) -- it's all found here in some form or another, which would be a bit disorienting if not for Stevens' often personal lyrical turns and the wide-eyed indie rock vibe that permeates the songs no matter where they may roam. Also, short spoken word pieces are sprinkled across the album, snippets which on one hand sound like field recordings but are in actuality personal anecdotes and reflections from friends, blending further the multicultural music-lesson feel and the introspective, singer/songwriterly tunes -- a nice effect. Highlights include "Demetrius," which takes a Sonic Youth-inspired guitar riff, rides it to the British Isles for some pan pipes, then onward to a Moroccan opium den, and "A Loverless Bed," which is a beautiful, reverb-laden ballad turned noise freak-out. ~ Jason Nickey, All Music Guide
