Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State (CD - 2003)

Lyricist: Sufjan Stevens.

Personnel: Sufjan Stevens (vocals, whistling, guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, wooden flute, recorder, oboe, English horn, piano, electric piano, organ, vibraphone, glockenspiel, xylophone, bass guitar, drums, cymbals, shaker, tambourine, percussion, sleigh bell); John Ringhofer (vocals, trombone); Monique Aiuto, Daniel Smith , Vito Aiuto, Elin K. Smith, Megan Smith (vocals); Tom Eaton , Stephen Halker (trumpet).

Recording information: Buxton School, Williamstown, MA; Megan's Apartment, Brooklyn, NY; N.J. Rec. Rm., Clarksboro, NJ; St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Brooklyn, NY; Steve & Jamila's House, Petoskey, MI; Sufjan's Apartment, Brooklyn, NY; Tom's Apartment, Brooklyn, NY; Vito & Monique's Apartment, Brooklyn, NY.

Arranger: Sufjan Stevens.

The first album to garner Sufjan Stevens considerable acclaim and attention, 2003's GREETINGS FROM MICHIGAN finds the Great Lake State-born singer-songwriter offering up an endearing and accomplished set of chamber pop songs. Designated as the beginning of Stevens's proposed "50 States" project, MICHIGAN highlights the multi-instrumentalist's penchant for lush, inventive arrangements, which are ideally complemented by his hushed, easy-going vocals.

Bearing true affection for his home state, Stevens opens the record with the delicate, melancholy "Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)," followed by the chiming, Stereolab-like "All Good Naysayers! Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!" The exclamation-mark-happy performer also shines on the spare, sleepy "Holland" and the vibrant orchestral mini-suite "Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)," revealing a charmingly dynamic approach built upon a foundation of earnest indie-folk. With its mix of minimalism and majesty, MICHIGAN easily stands out as one of Stevens's finest albums, and serves as excellent introduction to the amiable and prodigiously talented artist.

Sufjan Stevens's third album is a charming homage to his home state of Michigan. Filled with heartbreak, the album cryptically addresses Stevens' frustration with the notorious job market in the city of Flint in a lovely ballad that opens the record, and documents the depressing struggle the city of Detroit has fought to once again attain the elegance it had prior to the riots in the late '60s; however, it also touches on a brighter side, as in the cascading "Say Yes! to M!ch!gan!" Its title is a reference to the campaign adopted by the state in the 1980s and serves as the centerpiece as well as Stevens' attachment and amour for the state he is from. Musically, Stevens often plays his Jim O'Rourke and Stereolab cards, riffing along with complex polyphony in building loops and dynamics, but he also frequently imports lightly strummed guitars and stark banjo picking to break up the album and give it a rustic northern folk aesthetic. Stevens comfortably handles nearly every instrument on the album -- an impressive task that includes various keyboards, woodwinds, guitars, and percussions -- but also enlisted the help of Megan, Elin, and Daniel Smith from the Danielson Famile to help out with vocal duties, and the outcome is a haunting and hypnotic studio opus certainly worth getting lost in. ~ Gregory McIntosh minimize