Now we havent talked about Sufjan Stevens in a long while, so that means he has a wealth of new material and delicious little masterpieces to blog about due to his new EP and album at the end of last year. But really, if we're going to mention Sufjan then we'd be best mentioning somebody elses work (or rather what somebody else did with Sufjan's work) instead.
(The guy on the cover of the mix seems to have escaped from the cast of the tv show 'Boardwalk Empire' it appears)
Vancouver based producer Tor mixed various songs from Sufjan's back catalogue and collected them into a nice tidy album (ok, EP i guess) under the name 'Illinoize', a nice play on the title of Sufjan's seminal 2005 album 'Illinios'.
Essentially what 'Illinoize' is is just very simple, it's the music of Sufjan's best songs with his lyrics replaced by those of various rappers and hip-hop artists. Why is it worth blogging about? Well, the fact it actually works. It shouldnt work but it does. Strangely of all Sufjan's many many songs on my iTunes (how many is there, like 200 probably even without live and session versions!? Christ can that guy write!) these are the ones i go back to the most often. They fit the most different moods and offer something different, because lets face it, no matter how much you love Sufjan Stevens you wouldnt stick it on before you go out to a club or when you come in drunk. But now you can! Isnt that the last bastion of what Sufjan didnt yet already offer yet?
In short, 'Illinoize' is a triumph. A triumph of genre bending proportions.
Want to listen? Yeah, why not... plus this is a legal download from Tor's site, always a bonus...
Tor / Sufjan Stevens - Illinoize (71mb zip file with all 7 tracks included)
Or you can listen to the tracks individually or find out more about the mix project at Tor's website:
www.tormusic.net
