Sufjan Stevens: The Bqe (cd/dvd):

Synopsis

Sufjan Stevens premiered The BQE, a film and musical suite exploring New York Citys infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival in November 2007. The critically applauded performance featured 36 performers including a band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, a horn section, projected film footage of the expressway and five hula hoopers.

Entire package features the CD soundtrack, the DVD of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway film footage, a 40-page booklet with extensive liner notes & photographs and an accompanying stereoscopic 3-D Viewmaster reel.

The concept behind The BQE is based largely on the history of New Yorks Brooklyn-Queens Expressway 12.7 miles of urban roadway built between 1939 and 1964 by master urban planner Robert Moses. The Viewmaster, unveiled at the 1939 NYC Worlds Fair (the Worlds Fair being part of the motivation for the construction of the BQE, funnelling New Yorkers to and from Flushing, Queens), was intended to promote 3-D panoramic illusions of the American landscape and serve as advertising for various tourist destinations and motivation for American drivers. The Hooper Heroes comic book, written by Stevens and drawn, coloured and inked by collaborator Stephen Halker, follows three extra-terrestrial superhero sisters who use hula-hoops to combat the Messiah of Civic Projects, Captain Moses.

Tracklisting:
Prelude On The Esplanade
Introductory Fanfare For The Hooper Heroes
Movement 1 - In The Countenance Of Kinds
Movement 2 - Sleeping Invader
Interlude - Dream Sequence In Subi Circumnavigation
Movement 3 - Linear Tableau Eiyh Intersecting Surprise
Movement 4 - Traffic Shock
Movement 5 - Self-Organising Emergent Patterns
Interlude 2 - Subi Power Waltz
Interlude 3 - Invisible Accidents
Movement 6 - Isorhythmic Night Dance With Interchanges
Movement 7 (Finale) - The Emperor Of Centrifuge
Postlude - Critical Mass