Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine have shared two more tracks from their forthcoming collaborative album, A Beginner’s Mind, which will be released on September 24th via Asthmatic Kitty.
The entire album is comprised of songs apparently inspired by films Stevens and De Augustine saw while working on music at a friend’s cabin in upstate New York. For example, “Back to Oz” is inspired by the 1985 dark fantasy sequel Return to Oz; meanwhile, “Fictional California” is inspired by the 2004 direct-to-video cheerleading comedy “Bring It On Again.”
De Augustine claims to have written the most of “Back to Oz” at home in California, but he and Stevens completed the lyrics after seeing the movie. The song is accompanied with an animated music video, directed by Alex Horan and animated by Clara Murray, that is full of references to Dorothy and Oz while also being bizarre, psychedelic, and eerie.
