Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise - LP

2LP, Gatefold Jacket

Illinois (stylized Illinoise) is the 2005 album by Sufjan Stevens, a sweeping tone poem to the Prairie State. Across 22 tracks, Stevens weaves jazz, funk, and pop with symphonic flourishes, drawing on the state's people and places both iconic and obscure. Performed largely by Stevens himself across some 25 instruments, with a horn section, string quartet, and small choir, it remains a landmark of his catalog. Asthmatic Kitty, 2005.

Features

• Number of Discs: 2
• Gatefold jacket
• Label: Asthmatic Kitty Records

Track Listing

Side One:

1. Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois
2. The Black Hawk War, Or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, Or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, Or, "I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!"
3. Come On! Feel the Illinoise! Part I: The World's Columbian Exposition / Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream
4. John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
5. Jacksonville
6. A Short Reprise for Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, but for Very Good Reasons

Side Two:

1. Decatur, Or, Round of Applause for Your Step Mother!
2. One Last "Whoo-Hoo!" for the Pullman!!
3. Go! Chicago! Go! Yeah!
4. Casimir Pulaski Day
5. To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region, I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament, and It Involves Tube Socks, a Paper Airplane, and Twenty-Two Able-Bodied Men.

Side Three:

1. The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts
2. Prairie Fire That Wanders About
3. A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze
4. The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!
5. They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!
6. Let's Hear That String Part Again, Because I Don't Think They Heard It All the Way Out in Bloomington-Normal
7. In This Temple as in the Hearts of Man for Whom He Saved the Earth

Side Four:

1. The Seer's Tower
2. The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders Part I: The Great Frontier / Part II: Come to Me Only with Playthings Now
3. Riffs and Variations on a Single Note for Jelly Roll, Earl Hines, Louis Armstrong, Baby Dodds, and the King of Swing, to Name a Few
4. Out of Egypt, Into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I Shake the Dirt from My Sandals as I Run