In the past decade of music, I can't think of anybody whose career is harder to map than Sufjan Stevens. Let's go year-by-year:
2000: Sufjan releases his debut, A Sun Came, a mix of indie folk and lo-fi noise. Nobody notices.
2001: Sufjan releases Enjoy Your Rabbit, an ambient techno concept album that sounds nothing like his first one. Nobody notices.
2003: Sufjan release Greetings From Michigan, his first dive into orchestral pop. He plays more than 40 instruments in this long sweeping masterpiece, which is supposed to be part of an ambitious 50-state project. Indie critics and music lovers start to take note. This album is performed at small bible colleges where he stays in their dorms as part of his payment (I only know this because my best friend from high school attended one of such shows).
2004: Seven Swans, a stripped-down spiritual folk record, is released. Sufjan's songs start showing up on TV shows like The O.C.
2005: After much hype, he releases Come Feel The Illinoise, the second (and so far last) of the "state" albums. In case you missed it, this is one of the landmark records of the decade and you need to own it right now.
2006: Sufjan releases leftover: The Avalanche is a disc of Illinoise outtakes almost as good as the ones he kept. He also releases 5 discs of Christmas music, which solidifies our belief that he can take any bad idea and turn it into brilliant music.
2007: T one-up that crazy Christmas thing, he writes a classical piece called The BQE. This piece accompanies a film he directed about the New York highway and features lots of hula-hoops. I swear I'm not making any of this up. For the first year in a long time, he releases no new music.
2008: No new music, no mention of him recording any.
2009: No new music, no mention of him recording any.
So there you go - after a few amazingly prolific years, we get nothing from him for three years except for the BQE. What happened to his "state" albums? Got me.
Even though we are all craving a new standard Sufjan album (whatever that is), it's good to know that he put the care and beauty into this album that he did in the past. The BQE is a short enthralling listen that doesn't require an understanding of classical composition. "Movement III" will remind you of the brilliant building interludes included on both state album, while "Traffic Shock" uses electronic music a lot more gracefully and subtly than Enjoy Your Rabbit did.
If you are already a Sufjan fan, you should know that this guy doesn't operate on expectations of others. In the past ten years he has been so many things that it shouldn't come as a surprise that he wants a new roles, and classical composer suites him perfectly. If you aren't a Sufjan fan, go get Illinoise before you explore everything else he has to offer.
Am I still checking the Internet for anything I can find about his next vocal record? Yes! But this is a nice diversion.
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