wax&wires

Sufjan Stevens’ The BQE – Video Trailer

So it’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from Sufjan Stevens, especially his absolutely impossible 50 States project.

Back in 2007, the renaissance man himself produced a project called the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) in New York. It was a live performance packed with everything from the whole gamut of quirky musicians to hula-hoopers,  dubbing it a “symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City’s infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.” The project featured Super 8mm film footage shot by  Sufjan, 36 live performers including a band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players and (of course) hula hoops. Sufjan composed the music, which is entirely instrumental, and is now producing the accompanying film to be released on Athsmatic Kitty, his label.

The BQE will be made available as a CD soundtrack, vinyl (complete with a “Hooper Heroes” Comic Book), DVD, 40-page book, and stereoscopic 3-D Viewmaster reel (so you can finally break out your stereoscopic 3-D Viewmaster viewer…?!?….).

This October, the 92YTribeca will be premiering the BQE DVD in NY, and Sufjan will be there to intro the film. You can get tickets here.

In the meantime, you can watch the trailer for the BQE:

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 12:08 pm. It is filed under wax and tagged with eclectic, folk, live, performance, sufjan, video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.