The Observer, September 9, 2005
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 2
Critically-acclaimed songwriter Sufjan Stevens to hit Beachland
Sufjan Stevens wants to write his next song about you.
As the multitalented instrumentalist tours the nation to support Come on, Feel the Illinoise!, the latest installment in his Fifty States Project, he will be actively researching for future releases.
The Fifty States is Stevens' effort to release a CD based on each state of the union. Illinoise is the second; Greetings From Michigan, the Great Lake State was the first. Both are available for purchase at soundsfamilyre.com or for shameful piracy on DC++.
In an interview with Pitchfork Media, he noted, "My approach is to do a lot of observing, listening, research" – efforts he may likely maintain when he plays at the Beachland Ballroom on Tuesday, Sept 14 at 9 p.m. So don your best Ohio gear and get immortalized in song when he writes about our Buckeye State.
National Public Radio was curious about his endeavor, so they commissioned a song about Brinkley, Arkansas, a small farming town. He wrote about sightings of the ivory-billed woodpecker – a majestic bird once thought extinct – which had thrilled the residents.
Stevens' profile has steadily risen since the 2003 release of Michigan, a dazzling swirl of acoustic images from his home state. Some songs lament industrialization's decline and its negative in-state impact, others paint dreary portraits of anonymous Michiganners (Michiganites? Michagians? How about Wolverines? Hail to the Victors!) against backdrops of small towns, and still others sing of hope and home.
Illinoise is a similar release in how it uses the geography: not in a central role so much as a setting and starting point for ballads. The album uses locations, holidays, and traditions as appropriate backgrounds in his lyrics.
Sometimes, he sings of serial killers, but also paints more wistful scenes with instrumental segments as well as playful songs like "Decatur." The result is balance.
Stevens plays a wide variety of instruments, including banjo, glockenspiel, and organ in addition to a horn section; hence the need to tour with his "Noisemakers", a pun on the pun of Illinoise. (They were the "Michigan Militia" after that release.)
While Michigan was almost exclusively acoustically demure, Illinoise manifests Stevens' efforts to combine folksy instruments with electronic manipulation, usually with stunning results.
Stevens occasionally alludes to his Christian faith, but subtly in most cases. However, his album Seven Swans revolves around spirituality, much as Michigan and Illinoise center on those states.
Of course, the best way to understand his music is to experience it this Tuesday. When asked about how his concerts have changed since the deserved success of his recent albums, Stevens' reply was, "Now when I play a show, there are people there!" Be one of those people.
