Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine
★★★★
A Beginner’s Mind ASTHMATIC KITTY. CD/DL/LP
Stevens and labelmate hatch a meditative LP during a month-long sabbatical.
With a titular nod to shoshin, the Zen Buddhist practice of openness
and eagerness, A Beginner’s
Mind wears its conceptual depth lightly, with use of the I Ching, Eno’s Oblique Strategy cards and the duo’s nightly downtime moviewatching all feeding in. The gently ticking, lightly compressed acoustic instrument arpeggios will be familiar to fans of both songwriters, but it’s the pair’s half-whispered
vocal blend that enchants, De Augustine’s falsetto tiptoeing above that of Stevens. Despite the odd surprise – the Ernie Isley-like guitar lead on Back To Oz; You Give Death A Bad Name’s pokerfaced nod to Bon Jovi – the dream-state exemplified by the melting piano title track and gossamer standout Lady Macbeth In Chains is rarely disrupted, with Stevens and De Augustine like Art Garfunkel twinned.