I came to Sufjan Stevens through a strange path — and by strange path I mean specifically The Danielson Famile, a Christian freak-folk collective that makes some distinctly WEIRD music…which I happen to love.
Stevens was a loose member of the group, playing drums mostly, and singing background vocals. In my pursuit of Danielson lore on the interwebs, I read about him as an \”up and coming\” artist that I should be paying attention to.
Back then, I was an emusic subscriber (remember those days?), and I grabbed a copy of \”A Sun Came,\” an amazing, if sometimes uneven, album. The song \”Rake\” was especially mesmerizing to me. Stevens\’ voice sounded like a broken whisper over a simple picked guitar, singing \”you are the rock/you are the rake/you are the one when I watch myself.\”Little did I know the song was just an early glimpse of the emotional heights he could reach.
On \”Michigan,\” Sufjan created a mysterious lens through which to view his home state — a concept album riddled with chiming bells, melancholic vibraphones, organs, oboes, banjoes, piano and haunting vocals that tell stories of desperate people, historic local attractions, industrial lore and so much more.
The album opens with \”Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid),\” a slow, sad ballad for a once-great American industrial town. Stevens whispers \”Since the first of June/Lost my job and lost my room/I pretend to try/Even if I try alone.\” It\’s an unexpected and emotionally jarring way to open the album, but one that feels especially intentional.
The journey through Stevens\’ Michigan is by turns sad, exultant, contemplative and ecstatic.
Songs like \”Say Yes! To M! Ch! Gan!\” is a driving, whimsical, sometimes forlorn-sounding tune, sung by a narrator who has left his home and longs to return. \”Holland\” is a sparse, guitar and piano ballad about summer memories near Lake Michigan, and \”Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)\” sounds like the soundtrack to a \’50s-era educational film about the car industry — \”Henry Ford, Henry Ford! Public Trans! Public Trans! Pontiac! Pontiac!\”
The music on this album is beautifully orchestrated with Stevens playing most of the instruments himself. If that weren\’t impressive enough, he produced the album and distributed it on his own label, Asthmatic Kitty, which he founded with his stepfather.
There are 20 songs on this album, some of which, like \”Taquamenon Falls,\” are just instrumental interludes, but each of them serves an emotional and almost narrative purpose. Stevens is telling a story with his music, leading you from place to place, giving you the space and time to experience his home, its people and its history.
It was the first of what was to be albums covering all 50 states. He only finished two of them (\”Michgan\” and its sister project, \”Come On Feel The Illinoise\”), but both are wildly ambitious musical documents, and more than that, they\’re just stunningly beautiful.