Sufjan stevens -Illinoise -Great Alt-Folk multi-instrumental chorusey fun!!

Community biography from
Multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Sufjan Stevens loves thematic concept albums. His first release to come to public attention was the mostly electronic Enjoy Your Rabbit (2001), which was based around the animals of the Chinese Zodiac. In 2003 he announced plans to record an album for each of the 50 States of the USA, and released the first based on his home state, Michigan. It was widely praised by the media, as was the follow-up Seven Swans (2004). Seven Swans was a folkier album, based around bible stories. The second of his '50 States' project followed in 2005: Illinoise was his best album yet, and became one of the most critically praised albums of the decade so far, winning many Album Of The Year polls. In 2006 he released two more albums: The Avalanche was mostly comprised of out-takes from the Illinoise sessions, while Songs for Christmas was a box-set of Christmas-themed songs he had been giving as gifts to family members over the previous few years.

Since Stevens' announcement that he plans to record 50 State-themed albums, he has released three albums which haven't advanced him towards that target. Although Stevens is a prolific and impressively consistent writer, it's debatable whether he will ever complete the task he set himself.

1. Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois

2. Black Hawk War, Or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and ...

3. Come on! Feel the Illinoise!: Pt. 1: The World's Columbian Exposition

4. John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

5. Jacksonville

6. Short Reprise for Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, But for Very Good ...

7. Decatur, Or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!

8. One Last "Whoo-Hoo!" for the Pullman

9. Chicago

10. Casimir Pulaski Day

11. To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region, I Have an Idea ...

12. Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts

13. Prairie Fire That Wanders About

14. Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens ...

15. Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is out to Get Us!

16. They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from

17. Let's Hear That String Part Again, Because I Don't Think They Heard It

18. In This Temple as in the Hearts of Man for Whom He Saved the Earth

19. Seer's Tower

20. Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders: Pt. 1: The Great Frontier/Pt. ...

21. Riffs and Variations on a Single Note for Jelly Roll, Earl Hines, ...

22. Out of Egypt, Into the Great Laugh of Mankind, And I Shake the ...

COME ON FEEL THE ILLINOISE!!

David Kitt -the Big Romance

Although on The Big Romance Dublin's alt-folk artist David Kitt audibly upholds many of the key traditions associated with bedsit lands' introspective singer/songwriter muse (softly spoken, self-analytical, bonded brotherly to the sort of kindergarten acoustic guitar filigree's of Trumpton and Camberwick Green), he's a wild card, a textural experimentalist adding the exotic spices of electronica and self-assembly percussion to a genre which has been left to stew in it's own juices for far too long. The Big Romance, his first full-length offering, expands upon the half-sketched themes of his earlier DIY mini-album Small Moments by adding further tangential freshness. "Pale Blue Light", for example, is as contemporaneous as anything on Radiohead's Amnesiac; where layers of rainbow harmony, errant woodwind and Brian Eno synths intertwine over an awkwardly jazzy time-signature. Better still, there's the broodingly repetitious doom-rock mantra of "What I Ask", what Ian Curtis may have sounded like if he'd grown-up listing to Nick Drake rather than Iggy Pop. In his own, unarguably idiosyncratic and folk idiomatic way, David Kitt is creating music as pioneering as Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde. --Kevin Maidment

Track Listings
1. Song From Hope St (Brooklyn NY)
2. You Know What I Want To Know
3. Step Outside In The Morning Light
4. Private Dance
5. Pale Blue Light
6. What I Ask
7. Strange Light In The Evening
8. Whispers Return The Sun Rest The Moon
9. You And The City
10. Into The Breeze

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