After a harrowing multi-year battle with a sudden, undiagnosed illness that left him relearning how to walk and talk, Southern California songwriter Angelo De Augustine is back. Today, he announced his fifth studio album, Angel in Plainclothes, set for release on April 24th via Asthmatic Kitty. The record serves as a sonic document of his journey from the brink of death in 2022 to a “second chance at life,” marking the first time in years the artist, known for his collaborative work with Sufjan Stevens, has opened his creative process to others.
The album’s lead single, “Mirror Mirror,” is out today and signals a shift in De Augustine’s meticulous style. Moving away from his usual single-instrument compositions, the track is a hypnotic, experimental collage featuring train whistles, blown-out drums, and a slowed-down bowed psaltery.
Of the single, he states,
Usually when I make music, I’ll sit down with one instrument and write the song. In ‘Mirror Mirror,’ I didn’t stick to this principle and was messing around with the tape machine’s varispeed function- seeing what would happen if I slowed down what I’d recorded on the bowed psaltery, creating an unusual droning noise. The song came from experimenting with layering sound in a very free way and watching as the structure of a song revealed itself.
To celebrate the new era, De Augustine will head out on his first U.S. tour in seven years this May, joined by Hannah Frances. For a songwriter who once felt his music was a final goodbye, Angel in Plainclothes is a triumphant, reverent pivot toward healing.
The post Angelo De Augustine Announces New Album Following Miraculous Recovery appeared first on Indie is not a genre.