GutterPutter

By the time A Beginner’s Mind is released, there’s no doubt that everyone interested in the indie scene would’ve been aware of Sufjan Stevens. His largely ambitious concept albums with his erudite lyricism, soothing vocal performance, & complex influences & composition have made him a star ever since 2005’s Illinois. His 2015 release in Carrie & Lowell is seen by many as being among his best ever releases & it’s one that I enjoy a great deal of. Some may consider his works to be largely pretentious, yet the prevalence of both a male & female love interest in much of his songs have earned him a distinctively loyal LGBT+ fandom that continues to grow to this day.

You might know the details around him already, so you may have wonder who Angelo de Augustine is. To put it simply, he’s an indie folk musician who’s currently signed up to Sufjan’s Asthmatic Kitty record label to which he experienced some degree of notability. His most recent output in 2019’s Tomb earns some recognition from his small fanbase for the context of his breakup & his inability to contact his largely absent father. Now, he’s working with what one could best describe as his boss in creating yet another concept album that’s inspired by watching some films in a cabin in the outskirts of New York. From classics like The Wizard of Oz to overlooked comedies like Bring It On Again, many of the songs in the album based its lyrics on the films that the two have seen. Being an indie folk album like much of the two’s discography, it may not have trek into new grounds nor does it possess a noteworthy charm to win over many. What it does work well in however is in providing a consistent stream of introspective thoughts around the human psyche.

While the similarity between Sufjan & Angelo’s musical artistry have made the overall direction of the record unremarkable, it doesn’t stop the fact that a lot of the tracks show a sense of hope. With a certain, childlike exuberance in the fingerpicked guitars, the subtle tints of electronica & chamber pop can be heard in some parts of the songs. ‘Lady Macbeth in Chains’ contains an electronic closed hi-hat at the end of the song with a twinkly keyboard being played while ‘(This Is) The Thing’ is piano-driven in a kind of innocuous bewilderment as Stevens bemuses on morality & paranoia. The title track, derived from the film Point Break that deals with crime & liberty, sees Angelo singing about a desire for freedom within a largely minimal orchestration of only harmonic background singing & melodic piano. ‘Murder and Crime’ enables the coordinated intertwining between the acoustic guitar & the piano amidst the contemplation around the lament of one’s inherent sins. ‘Olympus’ even includes the calming notes from an electric guitar as we enter into another peek at the homoerotic motif in Sufjan’s lyrics. It is with special appreciation that ‘Back To Oz’ is the biggest highlight in the whole album. An enthusiastic percussion showing & enthralling textures around the use of the usual rock instruments & a choir-like layering of Sufjan & Angelo’s voice bears a resemblance that takes me back to Illinois.

I have little nitpicks to say around the lyricism of the whole album, if at all. There’s a sense that despite how the films that inspired the album doesn’t offer a significant deal of philosophical or literary weight, Sufjan & Angelo can still mine them to form compelling enquiries. ‘You Give Death a Bad Name’ offers a solid quip at the state of the U.S through the semantic field of zombies from Night of the Living Dead & its imageries. It questions the greed of the addressee for giving shallow promises. ‘Give me a name, more than a flame/ Can it contain more than a metaphor’ is compact with the routine pledge made from many corporates that opts to continue their appalling actions despite claiming to care about the environment or their workforces. ‘The Pillar of Souls’ even manage to turn its inspiration of Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth to become largely allegorical of Christianity. The narrative of the song, which describes the narrator coming out of limbo to reign supreme upon the Earth, is reminiscent of a more cynical interpretation of the Gospels of Jesus & even that of Paradise Lost given the influences of the demons in writing. The explicit showing of Stevens’ Christian beliefs would render an anti-theistic reading close to nil compared to its contemplation of the complex relationship between man, religion & the nature of sin.

However poetic or ruminating the songwriting is as per expected, there are numerous issues I have that can make listening to the album rather dull. The similarity between Angelo’s artistry compared to the folk roots of Sufjan Stevens can make the former feel like a ‘budget’ version & aside from some nice falsettos, he doesn’t add another dimension to the album. Given how much many tend to see this record as being essentially Sufjan’s work, the lack of distinction can prove to be problematic as I struggle to even distinguish Angelo’s voice from his. The quiet inclusions of other genres into much of the first half of the record is also marred by the all-too-familiar structures in many of the others. ‘Reach Out’, as an example, is lovely in itself, but there’s not much substance that I can point out as being special or innovative. The four-track run from ‘Lost in the World’ to ‘Lacrimae’ suffers peculiarly from the over-reliance on the harmony in the vocals & the fingerpicking can come off as being repetitive to a fault. The album doesn’t reach to the legendary highs of Illinois or Carrie & Lowell, but it’s ultimately a nice & thoughtful piece on what makes us human. Here’s to hoping that Angelo de Augustine can use the experience to carve out his breakout into a critical darling like his mentor.