indiecater

‘And now I was in Illinois, and it was flat, and full of corn, and boring.’ So wrote Bill Bryson in ‘The Lost Continent’, in which the author recorded his thoughts driving 14,000 miles around the U.S. That’s pretty much all Bill has to say about Illinois, though he does say it twice. On the face of it, the new Sufjan Stevens album is a hard sell. A singer songwriter you say? So it’s about Illinois? Okay, so it’s got references to historical figures and events? I see. A concept album. With biblical allusions? Mm-hmm. Oh he’s Episcopalian? Right, right. Here, let me see that song title. ‘A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze’. And it’s nineteen seconds long? Uh-huh…

This really sounds like the kind of idea that should never have gotten off the ground, burdened by a mass of scholarly ambition. By the time you’re halfway through the journey though, the whole enterprise seems natural and fancy-free. Check out the start of ‘Come On! Feel the Illinoise!’ - the fairground cheer of glockenspiel, piano and brass, and the pithy excuse of the underachiever, ‘Oh great intentions, I’ve got the best of interventions’. Amen, brother. At first the song appears to punctuate with what is essentially that trumpet bit from The Cure’s ‘Close To Me’, but then segues into a fuzzy keyboard solo before drifting feather-like to rest with a second song pulled to and fro by guitar plucks, piano, trumpet, tambourine, and understated strings. These instruments combine with some laid-back banjo on a pleasurable aimless stroll along the pavement in ‘Jacksonville’. A staggering, wayward guitar gives a nice skew to Stevens’ tidy arrangement. (The same idea works well near the close of ‘Man of Metropolis…’, the guitar on overdrive lending the tailored choir a slight edge, mussing its hair, deftly undoing a top button.)

From ‘Jacksonville’, we swing by ‘Decatur’, a deceptively simple (see below), pretty song with a banjo and accordion giving a fresh outdoorsy feel. Then it’s onto ‘Chicago’ and the mad city rush of big drums, a frantic guitar riff and swirling violins. These cut back to a jabby keyboard and Stevens’ whispering voice, tense, like Nick Drake wondering what will happen when the world gets so crowded you can’t look out the window. ‘I made a lot of mistakes’, he admits, before a sweet melee of harmonies gathers the momentum into a trumpet solo encircled by swishing cymbals, perhaps placing Stevens back on Clark St. at some time in his youth, at the Metro or in the Alley or hanging out with the crazy kids at Belmont. The second half of ‘Illinois’ is a little uneven, considering the vitality of the first. ‘Prarie Fire…’ wanders about and ‘They Are Night Zombies’ lacks zest despite its funky intro and skipping-rope rhyme. The mood picks up after the dark ‘The Seer’s Tower’, though. ‘The Tallest Man’ has a cheerleader chorus worth shouting about, and the album closes with a wondrous, otherworldly instrumental in ‘Out of Egypt…’, which pulses and radiates like a sonic Aurora Borealis.

What injects ‘Illinois’ with so much immediacy is Stevens’ gift for bittersweet melody, one that could mark him out as a McCartney or a Murdoch. Witness this on ‘Casimir Pulaski Day’, a warm and quiet song, sparse and subtle, with the delicacy of a Vermeer: ‘through the window shade, when the light pressed up against your shoulder blade’, all making for a touching fireside or bedsit moment. It’s the kind of tune that fits on a Wes Anderson movie, at one of the low points amidst all the malarkey. Actually, I’m surprised that one of the movie soundtracks hasn’t featured Stevens already, all those hummable strummable tunes, Christmas bells and handclaps. Anderson’s movies have moved from Texas (twice) to New York and then out to the Atlantic. Stevens intends to make an album for each American state, Illinois following on from Michigan. It may only be a matter of time before the two collide. Even the album cover has the handmade look of the fixed camera shots used to
introduce the cast of ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’, the frame overstuffed with character, a peculiar drawing of the Sears and John Hancock towers, spaceships and Superman, Al Capone and the billy goat whose curse still keeps the Cubs from the World Series. The pullout has an exhaustive list of the instruments Stevens himself plays on this disc, practically everything from accordion to Wurlitzer, many items rented or borrowed. On the reverse is more artwork of several other stars of ‘Illinois’, including Stevens himself, in his brother’s red cap, playing Daniel’s or Matt’s banjo, clearly way out of tune.

You cannot be but astonished at the workrate of the man. All arrangements are said to be ‘painstakingly composed’ by Stevens. You’d better believe it. He then recorded and produced the lot. You can detect the influence of Carl Sandburg’s poems, the paeans to Mid Western industry and earthiness, neatly mirroring Stevens’ own intense productivity. He must relish working within the limitations of devoting a whole album to a single state. (This is, after all, the guy who based an electronic instrumental album on the twelve signs of the Chinese Zodiac.) Apparently four songs were written about Abraham Lincoln, but weren’t included as they didn’t fit in. The songs that do make it are loaded with detail, nudges and winks to Illinois history and geography. In its three minutes and four short verses, ‘Decatur’ squeezes references to at least half a dozen stories about the town that you can find if you look hard enough. And if you aren’t bothered, well, it’s still great tune you can whistle to. ‘Illinois’ begins and ends with the creak of a piano at the dead of night. It carries the trauma of the Black Hawk war, a clown serial killer and seven wasp stings, but its seventy-four minutes zip by with breezy ease. And, as with most vacations, there is architecture and wine and restaurants to have your fill, not to mention the world’s first Ferris Wheel. Pack your bag! TK

Rating: 8/10

More Info: Official & Myspace
Buy Songs: Sufjan Stevens

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