From the Salmon

Sufjan Stevens is exactly the way I like my crazy. Or, to steal a line from the man himself, he’s gone insane, but for Very Good Reasons.

I’ve admittedly got a soft spot for quixotic quests, so when a quirky musical prodigy like Sufjan declared that he would be penning an album for each of the 50 states, I got a little weak in the knees. And when he set the bar impossibly high with 2003’s brilliant Greetings from Michigan “The Great Lake State”, I knew I was done for.

His second installment, Sufjan Stevens Invites You to: Come on Feel the Illinoise (or for the sake of brevity, Illinois ), suggests that Sufjan’s cross-country tour will be well worth the ride.

Many reviewers will make a big deal over the song titles. Indeed, it’s awfully tempting to peg Stevens as pretentious by pointing to a title like “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!’ “ (And that’s the title of an instrumental track, no less.) But I’ve already come out and said the man is downright loopy, so what difference should a little pretense make?

What matters is whether the music lives up to the ambition. And it most certainly does. Stevens’ arrangements are even more intricate than ever; the use of a string quartet in several songs adds an epic expansiveness that surpasses anything on Michigan. He even adds a touch of the funk to the undergirding bass groove of “They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhhhh!”

Michigan was a tribute to Sufjan’s home state, and you could tell on the first listen what a labor of love it was. Illinois is the closest thing I’ve got to a home state, so I was interested to see what might capture his imagination and whether the same loving care would extend to a new frontier. I was delighted to discover that, even though Stevens may not have the school field trip credentials I have, he didn’t skimp on the research. Historical characters, events and place names galore are peppered throughout the songs. Occasionally, he does give in to the bizarre bursts of geographic Turet’s that characterized some of Michigan’s weaker moments. But then again, the superfluous statewide shout-outs may pay dividends when he’s on tour: “Kankakee! Whooooooo!”

One complaint: in a song called “Chicago” (yes, he writes short titles, too), why on earth did Stevens make the centerpiece a road trip to New York City? I mean, we eventually embraced the whole “Second City” idea, but that doesn’t mean he has to rub our faces in it. And don’t even tell me that Los Angeles is bigger now. I’m not listening, I’m not listening.

Sufjan’s sparkling symphonic songs may be the most immediately engaging, but as with his previous work, it’s the more sparely arranged pieces that are ultimately the most rewarding.  And none is more compelling than his tender ode “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” Like Peter Gabriel did with Oswald in “Family Snapshot,” Stevens imagines the events of childhood that may have shaped the horrors to come. As a closing flourish to one of the creepier songs I’ve heard, he offers a twist that comes straight out of his Reformed heritage: “And in my best behavior / I am really just like him / Look beneath the floorboards / For the secrets I have hid.” Total depravity never sounded so sweet.

The other lyrical standout is “Casimir Pulaski Day.” I would have loved this song for the title alone. What red-blooded Illinoisan doesn’t have a soft spot for the Polish general who became a Revolutionary War hero? Anyone who got us a day off from school in the winter was just all right with me. But the joy that I remember as a child is nowhere to be found in Stevens’ story of one struggling with God after suffering terrible loss. After a series of personal recollections that frame the heartbreak for us, Stevens concludes:

And the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see His face
In the morning in the window
All the glory when He took our place
But He took my shoulders, and he shook my face,
and He takes and He takes and He takes

This is probing honesty at a moment that so easily shatters faith. God’s glory and sacrifice are not simple, easy ideas. Putting tragedy and loss into the context of God’s glory can be mindbreakingly difficult. And coming to terms with the response demanded by Jesus’ life, death and resurrection can shake up a life in a frightening way. The humanity of these lines gives way to a melding of voice, banjo and brass that builds towards what might be construed to be hope for the future. And as a sign that I might be a little crazy myself, it seems to me that Stevens has woven into this song a theme from the apocalyptic title track from last year’s Seven Swans, reworking it slightly to offer us a more encouraging take.

“The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!” — my favorite song so far — combines the tenderness of his more sparse songs with the rhythmic vitality of his brassier beauties. Strangely, this song doesn’t make me want to dance so much as direct, waving an invisible baton to command the layers that Stevens adds and subtracts as the song swells and subsides.

Illinois certainly lives up to the promise of Michigan, but I’m not sure it surpasses it. I may have to spend more time there before I can make the final call. Oddly enough, I’ll be leaving for the Land of Lincoln later today.

Illinois will be released on July 5 by Asthmatic Kitty (finally, a frameless website!). The album got leaked to the internet early, but you should really stop pounding my site looking for torrents (they’re not here) and pre-order it instead.  It might be the best $10 you’ll spend on music this year.