Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine - A Beginner's Mind. LP [Limited 'Shield of Perseus' Gold Vinyl]

Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine - A Beginner's Mind. LP [Limited 'Shield of Perseus' Gold Vinyl]

It’s been said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture but what about singing about movies? Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine have paired up for a collaborative project that does just that. ‘A Beginner’s Mind’ is their debut album and contains 14 songs (loosely) based on (mostly) popular films.

The source material is highbrow, lowbrow and everything in between. The music is folksy, sweet, sincere and harmonically effervescent - Simon & Garfunkel with New Age flourishes. This album runs the gamut and has fun with it, even while its songwriters remain fully rooted in the melancholy folk idioms they are known for.

Daniel Anum Jasper, a pioneer of Ghanian movie poster painting, was commissioned to paint a series of new works for ‘A Beginner’s Mind’. His paintings are a graphic simulacrum for the same sense of wonder, wordplay and intrigue that shape ‘A Beginner’s Mind’. By transforming old films into vital new songs, Stevens and De Augustine ask us to consider ourselves from a previously unconsidered vantage point - a new way of seeing and hearing - an exercise that’s as necessary and relevant now as it’s ever been.

“In the dizzying chime of his careful fingerpicking and high-pitched howls, De Augustine captures love’s bright blaze.” - Pitchfork

“What we find here, on what is arguably the pinnacle of his output to date, is De Augustine achieving the beautiful balance between introspection and grandeur; straddling the place where pain and hope intersect.” - Line of Best Fit

“Sufjan Stevens is one of the most prolific and absolutely gifted American songwriters of the 21st Century.” - NPR

“Stevens remains at the height of his powers - capable of work as individual, compassionate and powerful as any American composer working today.” - The Washington Post

TRACKLISTING

1. Reach Out

2. Lady Macbeth In Chains

3. Back To Oz

4. The Pillar Of Souls

5. You Give Death A Bad Name

6. Beginner’s Mind

7. Olympus

8. Murder And Crime

9. (This Is) The Thing

10. It’s Your Own Body And Mind

11. Lost In The World

12. Fictional California

13. Cimmerian Shade