Album: Sufjan Stevens, The BQE (Rough Trade)

This is all just so Sufjan Stevens. Tired of talking up his plan to write a concept album for each of America's 50 states, our man with the banjo put a small orchestra together to accompany some Super-8 footage of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

And, in its own strange orchestral way, the music stands on its own (though it's also available with an accompanying DVD). Essentially, it sounds like Illinois, but without the singing. Which is no bad thing. Is Stevens the alt.Gershwin? The evidence in favour is mounting.