4/5
We Are Augustines.
Beginner's luck is on mind for Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine as they begin again with their first collaborative album 'A Beginner's Mind', coming in a crowded week were we get new albums from modern soul legend Anthony Hamilton ('Love Is The New Black') and Japanese Breakfast's second of the year (the video game 'Sable' soundtrack). Paired together in painted album artwork along with a curious cover of rainbow and waterfalls and a half naked woman coming out the depths with angel wings and a butterfly below her Medusa head, that's now set in stone like the pregnant emojis of Drake's 'Certified Lover Boy'. That would be the kind of thing that would scare me to death as a kid. I was so afraid of the Goddess of Greek Mythology with serpents as strands of hair that I would look away everytime she was on TV (which was apparently a lot...we were a Titan of a household), like I would actually be left for granite if I gazed upon what I didn't see as a snake seductress (you've swiped right for worse). The only things scarier right now is what could have happened to Timothee Chalamet if we was left too long with 'Call Me By Your Name' co-star Armie Hammer. Now we will never listen to Steven's simple beauty of majesty, 'Mystery Of Love' the same way ever again, like there probably won't be a 'Call Me By Your Name' (again) sequel anymore. Either way Andre Aciman's book is a classic you can't top like Michael Stuhlbarg's sage fatherly speech of advice. Don't fight it. It's a good job Sufjan can find solace in an Augustine like a Brooklyn band. The Thousand Oaks, California singer Angelo De who used to open for Stevens on gigs and now joins him in collaboration concert. The 'Spirals Of Silence' singer and the 'Carrie and Lowell' one sounding as sweet as Simon and Garfunkel for all your Mrs Robinson's.
So here's to them. Jesus will love this indie darling from the Asthmatic Kitty label that will take your breath away now the cats out the bag. Created in a cabin in the woods of upstate New York whilst watching movies for inspiration, this feels like the ideal setting and the perfect muse. On the opening acoustic that reaches out the pair lament, "home is where you've called me/I've gone as far as the eye can blame/You say love may have lost its way." But it's 'Lady Macbeth In Chains' that unlocks more for some lyrical Shakespeare in all its toil and trouble. Fear and foreboding comes like the black and white of a fall forthcoming Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand 'Macbeth' movie. "Open on Broadway, you're a star/Just an opportunist at heart/Evil hid in glitz and glamour/Drunk like a potion harvester/All About Eve, cat up a tree/Margo Channing, listen to me/Don't believe what she says/When she sleeps in your head/Now the two allegories of pity and terror/One for the money, for trial and error/Telling the story anointing its pleasure/Lady Macbeth in chains." Before heading down the yellow brick road 'Back To Oz' like Dorothy, singing, "All my life was calling/All my dreams were buried away/You love me, but you don't know me/In due time you'll throw it away" and clicking their heels together in harmony. It's enough to pain take us to an ivory 'Pillar Of Souls' that stands proud for the 'Olympus' singers together on the podium in the corona delayed Summer of Tokyo 2020. Forget Bon Jovi, 'You Give Death A Bad Name'. But these shots will heal your heart during this hurt time. Like the atmospheric album self-titled song that's definitely for beginners. Keep it in mind for this 45 over 45.
'Murder and Crime' plauge this world on fire as we try and put out this apocalypse. But the sweet sound can soothe, even quarantined in crushing loneliness. Juxtaposing lyrics like "My boy, I don't know why this life/Is so cruel and unkind, but it weighs on my heart/All joys were taken from your eyes/As the law would abide in murder and crime/Hard lines as the fossil defines/It's own shadow in lime and reveals how it dies." In this conflicted world of confusion, '(This Is) The Thing' is the thing we want to (and need to) hear. Whilst 'It's Your Own Body and Mind' genuinely embraces equality in this age of the social. "Shall we all talk paternal?/Shall we all talk of the sun?/Everything runs in circles/Everything comes undone/One hand holds the mantel/The other one holds the key/Your body is a sanctuary/And your body is about to be free," the pair emote as they move in melody. Finding a new way that may co-exist together in a studio social distanced future, coming together. 'Lost In The World' but found with a new way to carry on. "A voice of air's mellifluence/Draconian will, superstition/Now go arise, awake your dead/An angel fell, one heaven sent/The Beaufort scale measured the gales/I saw the world between two sails/The water climbed over the sky/As miracles demystify." Couplets from this collaboratory couple of pure poetry. It's enough to write a "Now, Whittier arrived in fictional California/We're gonna bring it on again/Bring it on to you hard/Our school spirit was defined by dance and drama/The lord above will be my guide/The light into my heart," script for 'Fictional California'. Whilst the cool 'Cimmerian Shade' will keep us warm during the last days of this falling Summer that leaves the earth like fallen foliage come Winter. All before the 'Lacrimae' closer ties a bow taking bow round everything perfectly to close. On Daniel Anum Jasper's amazing album artwork, everything is painted from 'The Wizard Of OZ' to Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter, but when it comes to the beginning of something new like lambs, you'll love this sound of silence. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'Lady Macbeth In Chains', 'Back To OZ', 'Olympus'.
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