Ahead of their collaborative album, A Beginner’s Mind, Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine have dropped two new singles.
As the release date for their collaborative album A Beginnner’s Mind inches closer, Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine are dropping some much-desired crumbs. The duo have dropped two new singles, ‘Back To Oz’ and ‘Fictional California’, from the upcoming album.
A Beginner’s Mind is the result of inspiration that struck while the duo took some time off of their busy schedules to indulge in movies. Like the album’s title, which harks back to the movie A Beautiful Mind, songs on the album are also inspired by the movies they watched.
In the same vein, ‘Back To Oz’ found inspiration in Back To Oz, while ‘Fictional California’ came about thanks to Bring It On Again.
In a press release, De Augustine describes the mythology of ‘Back To Oz’: “This was a song that I had written mostly at home in California. We finished its lyrics after watching Return to Oz. The words reference an erosion of a central character’s internal reality.”
“A loss of innocence is the impetus for a journey to find inner truth. In the film, Dorothy returns to the world of Oz to find its landscape in ruins and its citizens frozen in stone. Only she can find the ruby slippers and return peace to Oz. Only we can save ourselves, but we first have to remember who we truly are.” he says.
Stevens added: “Angelo is mostly known for his intimate home recordings; his music is quiet and confessional. So for ‘Back To Oz’ we decided to go for something flashier. The song has a fun guitar groove, so we gave it some bass and drums, and Angelo even recorded his first electric guitar solo. It’s a sad song – being mostly about disillusionment – but it has a great party vibe too.”
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‘Back To Oz’ and ‘Fictional California’ are the third and fourth tracks Stevens and De Augustine have previewed from the album. The announcement for A Beginnner’s Mind was accompanied by the release of ‘Reach Out’ and ‘Olympus.’
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Check out ‘Back To Oz’ by Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine:
