Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine shared another pair of songs from their upcoming album A Beginner’s Mind. Hear “Fictional California” and “Back to Oz” below. The latter comes with a music video directed by Alex Horan and animated by Clara Murray.
“This was a song I wrote mostly at home in California,” De Augustine said in a press release on Back to Oz. He continued:
We finished the lyrics after watching Return to Oz. The words refer to an erosion of the inner reality of a central figure. The loss of innocence is the impetus for a journey to inner truth. In the film, Dorothy returns to the world of Oz to find her landscape in ruins and her citizens frozen in stone. Only she can find the ruby red slippers and bring peace to Oz. Only we can save ourselves, but we must first remember who we really are.
Stevens added, “Angelo is best known for his intimate home recordings; his music is calm and denominational. So for ‘Back to Oz’ we went for something a little more flashy. The song has a fun guitar groove so we gave it bass and drums and Angelo even recorded his first electric guitar solo. It’s a sad song – mostly about disillusionment – but it also has a great party atmosphere. “
A Beginner’s Mind will be released on September 24th via Asthmatic Kitty Records. When the project was announced last month, Stevens and De Augustine released the lead singles “Reach Out” and “Olympus”. Stevens and De Augustine were working on A Beginner’s Mind in a cabin in New York State. In the booth, the artists watched films every day that easily inspired the record.
