Sufjan Stevens - The BQE
A soundtrack to a highway – Stevens' races toward brilliance.
Taking a break from his grandiose (and surely impossible) dream of documenting life in 50 US states through song, Sufjan Stevens draws on altogether more mundane subject matter for his latest project. The traffic-clogged artery that is the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway may be an unlikely motherlode for a songwriter, but Stevens has conjured something magical from his unpromising muse.
Commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The BQE was a huge critical hit when performed live back in 2007 with Stevens’ super-8 footage accompanied by his evocative John Barry-like soundtrack. Now released as a full multi-media package, the project will delight fans of the artist’s widescreen vision.
Stevens has always shown a fascination with orchestral colour and sound, and his instincts are given free rein to run wild here. Skittish woodwind passages merge into spare elegiac-fluent soundscapes – perhaps evoking the contrast between gridlock and plain sailing on the infamous highway. In common with most soundtracks, this suffers slightly when shorn of its visual accompaniment, but as an artistic achievement, The BQE is another feather in this remarkable man’s hat.