What to listen to this week

What to listen to this week's segment focuses on something slightly different. If you are in my close circle of friends, you would know that I've developed a deep appreciation for Sufjan Stevens and have been listening to his music none stop since the day I read about Pitchfork's top 200 albums of the decade. Sufjan's album Illinois was ranked number 1 in a tight top 10 battle between the likes of Radiohead and Arcade Fire among others. Only knowing a few Sufjan songs and thinking that his Illinois album was a album for kids based on it's colourful cover, I never paid much attention to the album when it was released in 2005. Now 4 years later and coincidently a week before heading off to Chicago, I couldn't stop listening to his music, Illinois is probably my favourite album of the year if not decade in my opinion. Now I'm not going to get carried away here on a album that was released 4 years ago, my "What to Listen to This Week" segment is about current releases so I'll focus on Sufjan's Stevens current release called the BQE.

The BQE also known as the Brooklyn, Queens Expressway is the subject of this album but if you already know about Sufjan's previous work, this might come as a surprise. The BQE is a orchestral soundtrack reminiscent of everything from John Williams, to George Gershwin to old Hitchcock movies from the 50's. This soundtrack is meant to be a accompanying piece to the film that Sufjan also filmed and directed. It's delightful and beautiful also haunting at times, great music to fill the room and also great for the Holidays if you're just sick and tired of Mariah Carey or Boys to Men murdering you're Christmas classics, be different and play this with Sufjan's Christmas album and you'll be the bee's knee's at all you're Holiday festivities.

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