SUFJAN STEVENS - Illinois

Barely a year after the excellent "Seven Swans", one of the most distinctive young American songwriters returns with the second leg of his ideal tour of the American states (following "Michigan" in 2003), this time dedicated to Illinois, complete with an obvious pun and the usual mile-long titles. Sufjan Stevens presents here a complex, heterogeneous work (an hour and a quarter long across a full twenty-two tracks, six of which are nonetheless brief interludes or divertissements lasting under a minute), produced in the short span of four months and recorded in numerous different locations, including the Episcopal church of St. Paul in Brooklyn, where the piano parts were performed.

Although often minimalist in its writing and even more so in the technical support gear, Sufjan is by no means the stereotypical voice-and-guitar songwriter devoted solely to reviving the folk/blues tradition of American rock so dear to artists such as Jason Molina or Damien Jurado. At his young age, and already with a fair number of albums and varied experiences behind him, Sufjan seems to have found his balance in multiform, intense and airy compositions that, while still traceable to the musical history of the East Coast, embrace styles and genres with a very particular sensibility and the support of instrumentation that is truly ambitious in its variety, where guitar often gives way to piano, horns, strings, bells and more, in a dimension clearly leaning toward the orchestral.

It's not easy to sum up succinctly the dense content of "Illinois", but its opening tracks alone manage to give at least a partial idea of its author's incredible creative vitality.

It opens with the placid "Concerning The UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois", in which Stevens frames his seraphic voice - that of a teenager observing the world with wide, astonished eyes - with a light, crystalline piano; next comes "The Black Hawk War..." (pronouncing its full title takes up nearly the entire two minutes of its runtime!), an instrumental built entirely on an epic sweep of strings and horns, an ideal soundtrack for some 1960s mythological or sci-fi blockbuster. Quite different is the jaunty stride of "Come On! Feel The Illinoise!" which, introduced by a plucked piano, evolves into an alternation between a decidedly retro choir and a relentless kaleidoscope of horns, culminating - after a brief jazzy intermezzo - on a hushed, romantic and intimate note.

The intense, Buckley-esque "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." offers a further change of pace, with its meticulous reconstruction of the story of one of the most vicious serial killers in American history, traced with narrative mastery, an enveloping structure - built entirely around acoustic guitar and piano - and Sufjan's impeccable, perfectly suited vocals, touching and reflective. "Jacksonville" then lifts the mood, with its banjo-led flourish of strings that explodes into a rousing final chorus in a kind of white gospel.

But almost all the other tracks on the album are worth noting, each with surprising structures of its own. Stevens' musical and compositional range stretches from the grand "on the road" fresco of "Chicago" (in which his voice is regularly answered by a choir, vaguely Christmassy, pitched higher), to the orchestral funk fascinations of "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!", which even manages to conjure up a certain choral dance music of the '70s. Then there's everything from the seemingly opposite folk accordion sketching the quirky rhymes of "Decatur, Or, Round Of Applause For Your Stepmother!", to the sole hint of electric guitar in "The Man Of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts", itself interrupted by an intimate moment of just acoustic guitar and voice, from the musical-theatre pomp of "The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders" to the Steve Reich echoes of "Out Of Egypt, Into The Great Laugh Of Mankind, And I Shake The Dirt From My Sandals As I Run", all the way to the liquid, ethereal melodies of "Prairie Fire That Wanders About", a track that - most likely unintentionally - brings to mind the style of certain moments by a band otherwise light years away, Stereolab.

Yet, while clearly enjoying himself with so many extravagant digressions (and displaying throughout them all an uncommon skill and sensitivity), the young Sufjan channels his talent best in the record's more minimal, intimate passages, where his level but firm voice emerges over a bed of solo piano and/or acoustic guitar, as happens in several alternating moments across the album and above all — besides the already-mentioned "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." — in the haunting, shadowy story of "Casimir Pulaski Day" (an Illinois state holiday), built on a dialogue between guitar and banjo, and in the gorgeous, suspended "The Seer's Tower", which, anchored by a minimal piano melody and an elegiac, evocative choir, stands as one of the record's emotional peaks.

Stevens has crafted here a work that truly defies definition and comparison, one whose theme is geographically bound yet utterly timeless, and from which emerges, in full force, the portrait of a mature, complete artist blessed with a wholly distinctive talent that sets him apart even in the crowded landscape of American songwriters of these years. However much the record's diversity may disorient on first listen, the wonder at its flawless technical precision quickly gives way to the discovery of the many small, different gems it contains; while technical and compositional perfection alone can risk a certain emotional coldness, Sufjan Stevens manages to avoid any redundancy, filling his compositions with pathos while keeping a light touch that's never overly serious — another element that, listen after listen, helps lodge so many of the shape-shifting songs of this irresistible "Illinoise" firmly in mind and heart, never to leave.

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30/04/2026