Asthmatic Kitty announces the second installment of Sufjan Stevens' 50 State Project, llinois, a 22-track anthematic tone poem to The Prairie State. Following the 2003 collection of songs for his home state, "Michigan," Stevens presents an emphatic answer to the question: Can a songwriter express the spirit of a state he's never called home? With his most enterprising project to date - the result of extensive research, travel, meditation, and countless days and nights in the studio - admirers of his previous work and first time listeners will agree that the answer is yes.On this second state tour, Sufjan weaves variegated musical styles (jazz, funk, pop) and instrumental textures (from oboe to church organ) into a tapestry of persons famous, infamous, and anonymous, and places iconic, obscure, and ghostly.The musical road trip takes you through ghost towns, grain mills, hospital rooms, and the City of Broad Shoulders, with guest appearances by a poet, a president, and a serial murderer, to name a few. 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
