Sufjan is famously attempting to make an album for every state in the union, but has slowed down of late; this is his first release in over three years. The BQE is the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, but it is unclear if this is his New York album. Commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the resulting album might be best described as a grand creative franchise – incorporating movie, symphony, comic book, dissertation, photography, graphic design and a 3-D Viewmaster reel – in which a songwriter’s interrogation of one of New York’s ugliest landmarks expands athletically to forums and formulas outside of the song itself. In fact, the BQE is everything but a song.