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Sufjan Stevens is proud to present The BQE, a cinematic suite inspired by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Hula-Hoop. Commissioned by Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), The BQE was originally performed in the Howard Gilman Opera House in celebration of the 25th anniversary Next Wave Festival in October of 2007.
The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is an incidental 12.7 miles of urban roadway built over the course of several decades (1939-1964), spear-headed by the master architect Robert Moses to accommodate for the increase of commercial and commuter traffic in New York City's outer boroughs. The roadway was a painstaking piecemeal project, poorly planned, badly built, and relentlessly encumbered by the obvious obstacles of the era: red tape, neighborhood protests, World War II, and a congested borough whose sequestering layout proved ill-fitting for the automobile. The resulting expressway-a pockmarked, serpentine, congested BQE-has become one of Brooklyn's most notable icons of urban blight. And, for Sufjan Stevens, an object of unmitigated inspiration.
The official album release of The BQE follows nearly two years after its original performance at BAM, providing the songwriter (and his various collaborators) ample time to wrestle out all the thematic incarnations of the project, and to attempt an appropriation of Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work"). The resulting album might be best described as a grand creative franchise-incorporating movie, symphony, comic book, dissertation, photography, graphic design, and a 3-D Viewmaster® reel-in which a songwriter's interrogation of one of New York's ugliest landmarks expands athletically to forums and formulas outside of the song itself. In fact, the BQE is everything but a song.
First and foremost, The BQE is a self-made home-movie documentation, exhibiting how all the architectural colors of Brooklyn and Queens are fabulously intersected by this ramshackle artery of highway traffic. Shot renegade style on do-it-yourself film cameras, the animated footage of grid-lock crisscrossing the brick and mortar of Brooklyn flickers and cascades Koyaanisqatsi-style on three simultaneous screens. The 16mm cinematography (heroically shot by Reuben Kleiner on a 1960s Bolex) utilizes time-lapse photography, in-camera editing, slow motion, and post-production mirror effects to transform urban blight into a splendor of graphic compositions.
The BQE is also accompanied by an idiosyncratic musical soundtrack (composed by Stevens for band and chamber orchestra), evoking a romanticized musical choreography of perpetual motion vs. gridlock. Borrowing variously from Gershwin, Terry Riley, Charles Ives, and Autechre (to name a few), the music showcases skittish woodwinds wrestling out impressionist articulation (in 7/8) and imperial brass anthems evoking various incarnations of the music of the automobile.
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The BQE is available as a double-disc format (CD/DVD), which includes the original 16mm/8mm film (in widescreen "triptych" display), the original motion picture soundtrack, a 40-page booklet (with extensive liner notes and photographs), and the stereoscopic image reel (playable in all View-Master® viewers).
2009-10-30
Check out NPR's feature on Sufjan Stevens' BQE here!
| 2009-10-26 musiciansear.blogspot.com
it’s an instrumental tribute to New York’s (kind of) infamous Brooklyn Queen’s Expressway. Asthmatic Kitty’s press release described the piece as being “inspired by the programmatic symphonies of the Impressionists, but it aspires to the pageantry of Copland and the melodrama of a John Williams movie score.” Musically, it owes some obvious homage to Phillip Glass, of whom Sufjan has never been cagey about his admiration for. And there’s not a little Brian Eno sprinkled throughout either, but those are only vague inspirations. Really, The BQE is its own thing. It jumps tones and moods with abandon. There are strings. There are wind instruments. There are brass instruments. There are choirs. There’s the electro blitzkrieg that’s been prevalent on his offerings for the I’m Not There soundtrack and Dark Was the Night compilation. There’s every instrument you’ve ever heard of. There’s a few you haven’t. In short, there’s simply no reservation or modesty employed whatsoever. The BQE is a marvelous experience, one of the year’s finest albums, and one more heretofore unexplored side from one of this generation’s most gifted and imaginative artists.
The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is an incidental 12.7 miles of urban roadway built over the course of several decades (1939-1964), spear-headed by the master architect Robert Moses to accommodate for the increase of commercial and commuter traffic in New York City's outer boroughs. The roadway was a painstaking piecemeal project, poorly planned, badly built, and relentlessly encumbered by the obvious obstacles of the era: red tape, neighborhood protests, World War II, and a congested borough whose sequestering layout proved ill-fitting for the automobile. The resulting expressway-a pockmarked, serpentine, congested BQE-has become one of Brooklyn's most notable icons of urban blight. And, for Sufjan Stevens, an object of unmitigated inspiration.
| 2009-10-26 The Independent
Never an artist noted for thinking small, with The BQE Sufjan Stevens brings us his gesamtkunstwerk about the piecemeal construction and subsequent decline of the notoriously congested Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in New York.
A three-screen film interspersing hypnotic footage of the 12-mile highway with the hula-hooping antics of three alien superhero sisters (!), it's available as a CD/DVD package with accompanying booklet or as a vinyl double-album with a comic book. I've yet to see the entire film, but the soundtrack is typical Stevens, minus vocals: fidgety, fluttering woodwind brushed aside by bustling brass in a repetitive manner that recalls both the 1960s minimalism of Riley, Glass and Reich, and the earlier American representational tradition of Ives, Copland and Gershwin. These sections are interrupted occasionally by twinkling celesta, shimmering strings, and whirls of synthesiser noise – most effectively when the slowly-built orchestral momentum of "Linear Tableau with Intersecting Surprise" segues into the chattering electronica of "Traffic Shock". The mood shifts subtly from a sort of benign majesty at the outset to a more queasily discordant tone in the later stages, presumably reflecting the collapse of the project's idealistic origins. A typically idiosyncratic endeavour from America's most intriguing young composer.
| 2009-10-22 BBC
By Will Dean
Sufjan Stevens is one smart cookie. You could hear it in the arrangements of albums like Illinois and Michigan, you can tell it from his witty and idiosyncratic overlong song titles, and you can witness it via his grand ambitions (namely his stalled project to record an album about every US state).
But if you need proof of his odd genius, then what about this? Stevens has recorded a classical/techno/indie epic about a bit of tarmac. And he's done it beautifully.
The BQE was originally a commission from the Brooklyn Academy of Music – Stevens was tasked with creating an audio-visual spectacular for a 2,000-seater hall – but, as with much of the man’s work, it grew upon itself and spiralled beyond its original concept and is now released as a DVD/CD/comic book spectacular. Like his lovingly assembled 2006 Christmas box set, it feels like so much love has gone into it that it'd be mean not to buy it.
This is the story of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. Well actually, it is when you combine it with the other media. This is actually an abstract from Stevens’ oeuvre, but so strong is the music that you get the picture regardless. It's not really about a road, but we can still go on a journey with one of America’s greatest contemporary musicians.
At 40 minutes and comprised of seven movements, three interludes and pre- and post-ludes, this is a proper composition – no vocals, full orchestra, so get your ears primed and brain concentrating. And, unlike other pop artists who've branched out into classical – here’s looking at you, Macca – this feels like a very natural step. It’s a record that even casual listeners to Stevens could attribute to him, even minus vocals. There are moments throughout – especially the wing-fluttering woodwind and strings that punctuate the entire record – that are quintessentially him, but this is still miles away from records like Seven Swans and his two State records.
It's no wonder that Stevens has recently pondered the worth of creativity during the death-age for physical music – he’s made nine records since 2000 and explored and expanded his skill set beyond many of his peers. Where does he go from here if the album is dying? You do wonder, but whichever junction he turns off at, it's bound to be fascinating.
| 2009-10-22 Creative Deconstruction
By Refe
October has been a big month for Sufjan Stevens (who I wrote about yesterday, if you missed it.) Run Rabbit Run dropped on the 6th, and today brings us the release of another Sufjan Stevens project - The BQE. Much like Run Rabbit Run, which is a chamber music re-imagining of Sufjan’s electronic sophomore album Enjoy Your Rabbit, The BQE is more of an interesting digression than a conventional album. Unlike Rabbit, this one actually sounds like a Sufjan Stevens record.
The BQE, which Stevens’ label describes as “a cinematic suite inspired by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Hula-Hoop” was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The piece was originally performed at the in the Howard Gilman Opera House in October of 2007. Accompanying the musical score was an original film that spanned three separate screens and depicted the expressway, as well as a troupe of live hoola hoop girls called the Hooper Heroes.
Two years after its original performance, Stevens has adapted the work for a double disc format which includes both the soundtrack and the film. I will only be reviewing the musical portion because I haven’t had a chance to view the film.
Sufjan’s work has always featured complex, occasionally classically inspired arrangements. This time he goes all out, crafting a pseudo-classical symphony inspired by folk-pop, jazz, Philip Glass and 70’s era film score. It is certainly his most expansive project to date. Excluding the film, the choreography, the comic book (yes, the special edition version comes with a 40 page Hooper Heroes comic book) there are seven movements, a prelude, an introductory fanfare for the Hooper Heroes, and a postlude.
In many ways The BQE marks the return of Steven’s signature arranging style, relying heavily on brass and woodwinds and quirky, sentimental melodic themes. Run Rabbit Run was a significant departure, being performed exclusively by strings. Still conspicuously absent, however, is Stevens’ voice. Sufjan is a gifted storyteller, and is no stranger to highly conceptual projects such as The BQE. We’re talking about the guy who once planned to write an album for each of the fifty American states. Yet, whether it was a requirement of the commission or a personal choice, Sufjan tells the tale of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway entirely through music and multi-media, rather than through words. And while part of me can’t help but feel disappointed, the result is undeniably a remarkable piece of music.
As a piece of classical music The BQE is a solid effort. He leans on many familiar conventions while sprinkling a decent helping of his own clever twists. Movement II – Sleeping Invader, for example, depicts the late night ambiance of car horns and squealing brakes by pairing the quiet rise and fall of strings with the distant rat-a-tat dissonance of a blatting trumpet. The fourth movement’s swirling synthesizers and manic dance-floor beat cut the album in half, providing a prolonged electronic interlude depicting the chaos of rush hour traffic.
At a few points it may become clear to the more discerning ear that this is Sufjan’s first foray into the classical realm. Thankfully, I am in no way a classical music aficionado (although I do love the work of Stravinsky, and more recently Philip Glass. My wife and I almost walked down the aisle to Glass’s Clouds.) I had no qualms about his handling of the genre.
The BQE is a great addition to the Sufjan Stevens catalogue, not simply for its novelty, but for its quality as well. It isn’t likely to satiate fans’ hunger for a true Illinoise follow-up, however. In the same interview I commented on yesterday, Sufjan says this in reference to The BQE:
"I feel that The BQE is not really a song, it’s not really a movie, it’s not really just a soundtrack. It’s so ambiguous and diversified, it seems to lack shape. And the expressway itself lacks shape, so I feel like it’s all related to this existential crisis: Me versus the BQE, or me versus my work, y’know? And I don’t think I can win; I feel like it’s a losing battle…"
Hopefully the songwriter’s existential crisis will come to a resolution soon so that the world will continue to benefit from his creations.
| 2009-10-08 The Observer
By Ben Thompson
Sufjan Stevens's symphonic tribute to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway will be sold as a lushly appointed CD/DVD package with "stereoscopic 3D Viewmaster reel". Euros Childs's fifth solo album is already available in its entirety (via blog.myspace.com/euroschilds) as a free download, and is to be sold in CD form only at live shows and (at some unspecified point in the future) by mail order. The strange thing is, if you had to say which one of these records makes the best use of the album's capacity to compress an entire creative world view into a representative artefact, Son of Euro Child would win out every time.
Stevens's "musical suite" was first performed by a 36-strong company as a live accompaniment to his own film footage of the silently thundering highway at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave festival. Roll over Matt Bellamy, tell Goldie the news: the proposition that classical might be the new pop seems to be giving us an improbably good run for our money this year.
The gear changes on this particular autobahn are swift and sometimes a little clunky. Within just over four minutes, the opening monoxide drone of Prelude on the Esplanade has already given way to the exultant Fanfare For the Hooper Heroes and thence to the Richard-Clayderman-plays-Steve-Reich ivory-tinkling of Movement 1: In the Countenance of Kings. And although the ensuing instrumental fantasia in the spirit of Aaron Copland will delight many seekers after orchestral opulence, it will also give admirers of the down-home lyrical acuity of Stevens's two best albums - Seven Swans and Michigan - further cause to rue his vaulting ambition.
Sufjan Stevens is a very talented singer-songwriter who seems determined to do almost anything else but write songs and sing them.
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Sufjan Stevens' The BQE DVD/CD
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