While Sufjan Stevens has always stood as a notable contemporary songwriter, the harmonic, overlapping melodies and soft Bible-study verses had become somewhat tired after 2006’s The Avalanche. While his songs are still beautiful, the sounds were recognizable and firmly established as uniquely his. With The BQE, however, Stevens takes a leap forward as one of our generation’s best composers. This album is better compared to Phillip Glass and Steve Reich than the acoustic pantywaists that mimicked Stevens’ previous albums — he has become a classical composer while retaining the thematic variance that makes his music so listenable.

The BQE is mostly comprised of movements and interludes. The high point in the album comes with “Movement III: Linear Tableau With Intersecting Surprise” and the ensuing “Movement IV: Traffic Shock.” These two songs illustrate Stevens’ other step forward, an embrace of the electronic sound that has become commonplace in today’s music. He feeds the two styles into one another to create a tableau that, while not necessarily radio-friendly, provides us a unique blend of sounds and media mediums. The BQE was released with a cinematic equivalent: it functions as a soundtrack as well as an album. The full box set — DVD, essay, comic book, etc. — was released last month.