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STEVENS, SUFJAN
the bqe - cd / dvd - plus view-master viewer - a rough trade shop exclusive

Release Date: 19/10/2009

rough trade shop exclusive including a classic view-master viewer
cd / dvd set 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. 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 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. 'the bqe' further extends its mythology by anthropomorphizing the expressway and its theoretical conceits into a 40-page comic book (cover by matt loux, masthead by christian acker), in which three extra-terrestrial superhero sisters (botanica, quantus, and electress) use hula-hoops to combat the 'the messiah of civic projects,' captain moses, and his totalitarian social architecture. the comic book, written by stevens and gorgeously drawn, colored, and inked by longtime friend and collaborator stephen halker, visualizes in graphic form many of the political motifs of the movie and soundtrack: mid-century urban theory, modernism, post-modernism, hoop dynamics, and the spiritual practice of subud.

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