Sufjan Stevens
Illinois 2LP vinyl

Like the self-proclaimed 'Spiderman' who climbed Chicago's sears tower with no harness, Sufjan Stevens scales dusty prairies, steel factories, and two hundred years of history in the second installment of his 50 state project, 'Illinois', a 22-track anthematic tone poem to the prairie state. an engrossing musical road trip, Illinois takes you through ghost towns, grain mills, hospital rooms, and the city of broad shoulders, with guest appearances by a poet, a president, a serial murderer, ufo's, superman, the goat that cursed the cubs, and decatur's famous chickenmobile. Sufjan weaves variegated musical styles (jazz, funk, pop, folk, and rodgers and hammerstein-like flourishes) and the textures of 25 instruments into a tapestry of persons and places famous, infamous, iconic and anonymous. invoking the muse of poet Carl Sandburg, 'Illinois' ushers in trumpets on parade, string quartets, female choruses and ambient piano scales arranged around Stevens' emerging falsetto.

NEW / Released in 2005 / Reissue

Tracklist:

A1 Concerning The UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois

A2 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!"

Come On! Feel The Illinoise!

A3.1 Part I: The World's Columbian Exposition

A3.2 Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream

A4 John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

A5 Jacksonville

A6 A Short Reprise For Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, But For Very Good Reasons

B7 Decatur, Or, Round Of Applause For Your Stepmother!

B8 One Last "Whoo-Hoo!" For The Pullman

B9 Go! Chicago! Go! Yeah!

B10 Casimir Pulaski Day

B11 To The Workers Of The Rock River Valley Region, I Have An Idea Concerning Your Predicament, And It Involves Tube Socks, A Paper Airplane, And Twenty-Two Able-Bodied Men

C12 The Man Of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts

C13 Prairie Fire That Wanders About

C14 A Conjunction Of Drones Simulating The Way In Which Sufjan Stevens Has An Existential Crisis In The Great Godfrey Maze

C15 The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us!

C16 They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!

C17 Let's Hear That String Part Again, Because I Don't Think They Heard It All The Way Out In Bloomington-Normal

C18 In This Temple As In The Hearts Of Man For Whom He Saved The Earth

D19 The Seer's Tower

The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders

D20.1 Part I: The Great Frontier

D20.2 Part II: Come To Me Only With Playthings Now

D21 Riffs And Variations On A Single Note For Jelly Roll, Earl Hines, Louis Armstrong, Baby Dodds, And The King Of Swing, To Name A Few

D22 Out Of Egypt, Into The Great Laugh Of Mankind, And I Shake The Dirt From My Sandals As I Run

D23 The Avalanche