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Avg: 3.5 (93 ratings)
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Style: Orchestral, Classical
- Label: Asthmatic Kitty Records / SC Distribution
Stevens' toweringly ambitious symphonic ode to a highway
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We Say...
You knew Sufjan Stevens is ambitious, but don't act so surprised that he composed a symphonic ode to a highway: if Stevens has any musical passions, we know that full-length tributes to national locations and baroque (if not Baroque) orchestral arrangements are two of them. On 2005's unanimously praised Illinois, Stevens employed both these interests to huge results, with choirs, horns, strings and filename-truncating song titles revolving around state landmarks.
Of course, an instrumental tribute is more abstract; the movement labeled "Dream Sequence in Sub Circumnavigation" sounds like a dream sequence, yeah, and the one with the word "linear" in the title has a fairly straightforward pace, with the staccato violins comprising an insistent bed for the myriad of winds to flutter and toil over, almost Steve Reich-like for a couple minutes. It also benefits from his past grandiosities. We're already used to the production excesses; the 40-minute running time is one of his leanest. Whether or not you can hear what he's trying to evoke from the expressway (and the prelude does resemble a patchwork of traffic noise), The BQE definitely has rewards for the pop audience — "Traffic Shock" is a zap-happy techno intermission with nods toward both classical and jazz.
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| 01. |  |
Prelude on the Esplanade |
2:56 |
|
| 02. | |
Introductory Fanfare for the Hooper Heroes |
1:07 |
|
| 03. | |
Movement I—In the Countenance of Kings |
5:19 |
|
| 04. | |
Movement II—Sleeping Invader |
4:34 |
|
| 05. | |
Interlude I—Dream Sequence in Subi Circumnavigation |
3:33 |
|
| 06. | |
Movement III: Linear Tableau With Intersecting Surprise |
4:09 |
|
| 07. | |
Movement IV: Traffic Shock |
3:24 |
|
| 08. | |
Movement V: Self-Organizing Emergent Patterns |
3:45 |
|
| 09. |
Interlude II: Subi Power Waltz |
0:28 |
|
|
| 10. | |
Interlude III: Invisible Accidents |
0:54 |
|
| 11. | |
Movement VI: Isorhythmic Night Dance With Interchanges |
3:17 |
|
| 12. | |
Movement VII (Finale): The Emperor of Centrifuge |
3:51 |
|
| 13. | |
Postlude: Critical Mass |
2:59 |
|
13 Total Tracks, 40:16 Total Length
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