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Sufjan Stevens
Illinois
Rough Trade
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Article
written by Ged M
Jul 17, 2005.
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Sufjan’s fifth album is the second of his ‘States’ series and, logically therefore it’s called ‘Illinois’, not “Illinoise” or “Come On Feel The Illinoise” as the punning cover has it and certain music papers can’t work out (GCSE English not being a requirement to work at NME). It’s a heady trip of musical psycho-geography, a bit like Iain Sinclair’s books about London, rich on research and heavy on the history but you don’t need a map or Dictionary of National Biography to chart your passage. The album develops elements contained in ‘Michigan’ and ‘Seven Swans’, encompassing folk, country, orchestrated pop, Philadelphia soul, jazz, salsa and showtunes, lashed to themes that include Superman, UFOs, zombies, serial killers, presidents, poets, death and resurrection.
Lyrically, the songs transcend songwriting. The song of the serial killer, ‘John Wayne Gacy Jr’, is anything but sensationalist, capturing the well-liked boy and the charity worker with 30 terrible secrets under the house, and showing sympathy for the victims with a gasping, falsetto ‘oh my god’. In ‘Casimir Pulaski Day’ (a revolutionary war hero celebrated in Illinois with a public holiday on the first Monday of March, factophiles) he can sing an unbearably tender song about love and disease, full of a poet’s eye for the perfect image. It’s infused with the same spirituality that made ‘Seven Swans’ so memorable, but which is humane rather than preachy. The same thoughts are pursued in ‘The Seer’s Tower’, another pun (the album is packed with them, in the art and the words) on Chicago’s tallest tower.
If that makes it sound maudlin, there are many more examples of light and laughter. ‘The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders’ is a Rogers and Hammerstein big production number, while ‘Jacksonville’ has heartlifting horns and stirring strings. ‘The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts’ corrals folk effects into a big rock circus while ‘Decatur or Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!’ is a countryish romp with the quirkiest rhythms in the lyrics. The finest track is the epic ‘Chicago’, rousing with swooning strings, bright trumpets and the angelic voices of the Illinoisemaker Choir, that belay its melancholy lyrics: “I made a lot of mistakes”.
The only downsides are that in its length (75 minutes) there are some longeurs and the impish humour in the song titles can grate (track 2 is 53 words long) but otherwise it’s Sufjan’s best record to date, varied, visionary, passionate, breathtakingly literate and musically compelling.
Untitled Document
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