A Beginner's Mind
by Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine
juliafreddo
juliafreddo
sufjan's music always has a special place in my heart. this album is beautiful
Favorite track: Lady Macbeth In Chains.
Deaf Gilgamesh
Deaf Gilgamesh
ever track on this is great, ill still be listening years from now
Favorite track: Fictional California.
Tal
Tal
i cry at this song every time, i dont even know why. the first note always gets a tear out of me
Favorite track: Back To Oz.
aleksfogle
elpete77
Matthew Potter
seajayboyd
slow_motion
Peter Thew
freeagent85
felix wirsing
Paula Brinkman Lowe
alexgiesting
machin3grrrl
Salty Sea Hag
Guy Carignan
Andrew Morgan
druiven
audrey
erin
John Merrick
bleu_hope
ook
Dept. of Agriculture
Rich Collins
fertilevoyage
martinoheat
mohrmio
jon_owen
IKDYTK
checkai23
vagueshrug
Victoria N
skipper16
alexthebehr
James Paradissis
the_last_austin
becmojo
shkippy
ILNU #ByCha
August Lamm
Grant Withington
denis_david
Clark Kildun
Ruben Perez
sauvikb
volcanicdog
Karol Mazurek
Mario Montes
cdubz
rjams00
gergodanyi
coriander
HEMAD
Cycolli
gilbert ramirez
theotherawesome
qby
Thom Slattery
JK
LegendofJoeBow
roadcone
rozzin
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Record/Vinyl + Digital AlbumLimited to one per person. Orders of multiples will be canceled and refunded.
Includes unlimited streaming of A Beginner's Mind via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.ships out within 3 daysPurchasable with gift card$12 USD
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Record/Vinyl + Digital AlbumLimited to one per person. Orders of multiples will be canceled and refunded.
Includes unlimited streaming of A Beginner's Mind via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.ships out within 3 daysPurchasable with gift card$12 USD or more
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Record/Vinyl + Digital AlbumAssembled expressly for person who likes to collect everything, this bundle ensures you get all three 7-inches and the 12-inch from A Beginner's Mind.
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* Beginner's Mind Ocean Blue full LP 12-inch
* Olympus Mechanical Owl Silver 7-inch of "Reach Out" and "Olympus"
* 7-inch #2
* 7-inch #3
* Movie Club ID card
Includes unlimited streaming of A Beginner's Mind via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.ships out within 3 daysPurchasable with gift card$55 USD
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1. |
Reach Out
03:43
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I have a memory
Of a time and place where history resigned
Now my apology
All the light came in to fulminate my mind
Reach out, reach out
To all the ones who came before you
Ponder what is right
You and I, in defiance
Speak out, speak out
The conversation may afford you
Wisdom of the wise
You and I, in defiance
And I come from conscience where there is no conjugation
I would rather be a flower than the ocean
And I held myself as something of an innovation
I would rather be devoured than be broken
All my life I tried so hard
To separate myself from all
That is and was and will be torn apart
You were running unafraid
I know you, but I’ve changed my way
You know I take it all to heart
Home is where you’ve called my name
I’ve gone as far as the eye can blame
You said love may have lost its way
Now my life has been erased
And what I gave, I gave for you
And for myself and for the holy name
You were running unashamed
And yours is mine and all remains
As nothing ever stays the same
Reach out, reach out to all the ones who came before
Reach out, reach out to all the ones who came before
Reach out, reach out and all at once the pain restores you
Reach out, reach out and all at once the pain restores you
All at once the pain restores you
I have a memory of a time and place where history resigned
Now in my reverie
For the guiding light that opened up my mind
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2. |
Lady Macbeth In Chains
03:42
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3. |
Back To Oz
04:12
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4. |
The Pillar Of Souls
03:10
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5. |
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6. |
Beginner’s Mind
02:15
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7. |
Olympus
03:07
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Oh, lift up your head, boy
Don’t play pretend dead on the floor
Now Harryhausen conceived from a cauldron
Wielding Olympus with eyes on the shore
There’s nothing
There’s nothing
Oh, show me the flow of my life
Bound by Acrisius bronzed in the skylight
Seeking the oracle’s eyes in the night with a sigh
Seriphos greets us with moments of silence
There’s nothing
There’s nothing
There’s nothing
There’s nothing
Who will arrange my great escape?
Hopelessly I have been torn from this outrage
Tossing and turning uneasy it cost me the cross
Am I at rest or resigned in my chaos?
There’s nothing
There’s nothing
There’s nothing
There’s nothing
There’s something
It’s the light on your hand
There’s something
It’s the touch of my wristband
There’s one thing
It’s the weight of our wish
There’s one thing
It’s our very first kiss
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8. |
Murder And Crime
03:30
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9. |
(This Is) The Thing
02:48
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10. |
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11. |
Lost In The World
03:10
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12. |
Fictional California
02:50
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13. |
Cimmerian Shade
04:19
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14. |
Lacrimae
02:07
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about
It’s been said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture (impossible and absurd). 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 that contains 14 songs (loosely) based on (mostly) popular films. The source material is highbrow, lowbrow, and everything in between. A cornerstone of zombie horror (Night of the Living Dead), a touchstone psychological thriller (Silence of the Lambs), a high-octane action flick (Point Break), and a Bette Davis classic (All About Eve) are inspiration for songs that seek to investigate the meaning of life, the meaning of death, and everything in between. The movies are only catalysts; the songs take liberty with their source material, allowing for bold tangents, often running wild with existential inquiry. John Carpenter’s The Thing inspires a song that explores the disease of social paranoia, while Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire is the building blocks of a song about human suffering and isolation. The music is folksy, sweet, sincere and harmonically effervescent—Simon & Garfunkel with New Age flourishes. There’s an S&M dirge inspired by Hellraiser III, a peppy campfire song based on the direct-to-video cheerleader rom-com Bring It On Again, and a fem-power lo-fi folk anthem based on Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It. 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.
What began as a superficial conceit became a more serious investigation when Stevens and De Augustine scheduled a month-long sabbatical in upstate New York to work together in a friend’s cabin. Their method was simple: watch films at night, sketch songs in the morning. They wrote in tandem—one person writing a verse, the other a chorus, churning out chord progressions and lyrical tapestries willy-nilly, often finishing each other’s sentences in the process. Rigorous editing and rewriting ensued. The results are less a “cinematic exegesis” and more a “rambling philosophical inquiry” that allows the songs to free-associate at will. Plot-points, scene summaries, and leading characters are often displaced by esoteric interpolations that ask the bigger question: what does it mean to be human in a broken world?
Stevens and De Augustine wrote everything with a deliberate sense of shoshin—the Zen Buddhist concept for which the record is named and an idea that empowered the pair to look for and write about unlikely inspiration without preconceived notions of what a film had to say. (The I-Ching and Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies also served as incentives along the way.) The movies became rhetorical prompts in a meta-textual game of broken telephone, with the songwriters letting their distinct reactions and creative instincts govern their process. The underlying objective was empathy and openness, absent of judgment: to observe what is pure and good—or seemingly dark and villainous—with the eyes of a child.
In Ghana during the late ’80s, a novel “mobile cinema” culture emerged when enterprising film fans screened Hollywood blockbusters in the backs of pick-up trucks using portable generators. To advertise the movies, Ghanaian artists painted alternate posters, inspired only by the scant information they had about each film. A pioneer of this form—Daniel Anum Jasper—was commissioned by Stevens and De Augustine to paint a series of new works for A Beginner’s Mind (including covers for three 7-inch singles). Information about the project was deliberately kept vague so that Mr. Jasper could work without restraint. Mythical deities and monsters, zombies, skydivers and a celebrated American director (Jonathan Demme, to whom the album is dedicated) were submitted as visual cues. The resulting 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 (with new imagery), Stevens and De Augustine ask us to consider ourselves (and the world around us) 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.
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 that contains 14 songs (loosely) based on (mostly) popular films. The source material is highbrow, lowbrow, and everything in between. A cornerstone of zombie horror (Night of the Living Dead), a touchstone psychological thriller (Silence of the Lambs), a high-octane action flick (Point Break), and a Bette Davis classic (All About Eve) are inspiration for songs that seek to investigate the meaning of life, the meaning of death, and everything in between. The movies are only catalysts; the songs take liberty with their source material, allowing for bold tangents, often running wild with existential inquiry. John Carpenter’s The Thing inspires a song that explores the disease of social paranoia, while Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire is the building blocks of a song about human suffering and isolation. The music is folksy, sweet, sincere and harmonically effervescent—Simon & Garfunkel with New Age flourishes. There’s an S&M dirge inspired by Hellraiser III, a peppy campfire song based on the direct-to-video cheerleader rom-com Bring It On Again, and a fem-power lo-fi folk anthem based on Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It. 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.
What began as a superficial conceit became a more serious investigation when Stevens and De Augustine scheduled a month-long sabbatical in upstate New York to work together in a friend’s cabin. Their method was simple: watch films at night, sketch songs in the morning. They wrote in tandem—one person writing a verse, the other a chorus, churning out chord progressions and lyrical tapestries willy-nilly, often finishing each other’s sentences in the process. Rigorous editing and rewriting ensued. The results are less a “cinematic exegesis” and more a “rambling philosophical inquiry” that allows the songs to free-associate at will. Plot-points, scene summaries, and leading characters are often displaced by esoteric interpolations that ask the bigger question: what does it mean to be human in a broken world?
Stevens and De Augustine wrote everything with a deliberate sense of shoshin—the Zen Buddhist concept for which the record is named and an idea that empowered the pair to look for and write about unlikely inspiration without preconceived notions of what a film had to say. (The I-Ching and Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies also served as incentives along the way.) The movies became rhetorical prompts in a meta-textual game of broken telephone, with the songwriters letting their distinct reactions and creative instincts govern their process. The underlying objective was empathy and openness, absent of judgment: to observe what is pure and good—or seemingly dark and villainous—with the eyes of a child.
In Ghana during the late ’80s, a novel “mobile cinema” culture emerged when enterprising film fans screened Hollywood blockbusters in the backs of pick-up trucks using portable generators. To advertise the movies, Ghanaian artists painted alternate posters, inspired only by the scant information they had about each film. A pioneer of this form—Daniel Anum Jasper—was commissioned by Stevens and De Augustine to paint a series of new works for A Beginner’s Mind (including covers for three 7-inch singles). Information about the project was deliberately kept vague so that Mr. Jasper could work without restraint. Mythical deities and monsters, zombies, skydivers and a celebrated American director (Jonathan Demme, to whom the album is dedicated) were submitted as visual cues. The resulting 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 (with new imagery), Stevens and De Augustine ask us to consider ourselves (and the world around us) 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.
credits
released September 24, 2021
All songs recorded, performed. mixed, arranged and
produced by Angelo De Augustine and Sufjan Stevens
Casey Foubert plays drums and bass on “Back To Oz”
Melissa Mary Ahern sings background vocals on “Lacrimae”
All other instruments etc. performed by Angelo and Sufjan
Mastering and vinyl cut by Josh Bonati
All original artwork by Daniel Anum Jasper
All songs recorded, performed. mixed, arranged and
produced by Angelo De Augustine and Sufjan Stevens
Casey Foubert plays drums and bass on “Back To Oz”
Melissa Mary Ahern sings background vocals on “Lacrimae”
All other instruments etc. performed by Angelo and Sufjan
Mastering and vinyl cut by Josh Bonati
All original artwork by Daniel Anum Jasper
license
all rights reserved
tags
about
Sufjan Stevens New York, New York
Sufjan Stevens is a singer-songwriter living in New York City.
discography
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May 2023 -
Jul 2022 -
Sep 2021 -
May 2021