Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine have shared another double offering from their upcoming film-inspired collaborative album, A Beginner's Mind, which is due on September 24 through Asthmatic Kitty.
Like previously released singles "Reach Out" and "Olympus," these new songs — the soulful, poppy "Back to Oz" and fingerpicked "Fictional California" — are inspired by the films Stevens and De Angelo watched while recording A Beginner's Mind. This time around, however, the songs are centred on poorly-received sequels: 1985's Return to Oz and 2004's direct-video Bring It on Again, respectively.
About "Back to Oz," De Augustine said:
This was a song that I had written mostly at home in California. We finished its lyrics after watching Return to Oz. The words reference an erosion of a central character's internal reality. A loss of innocence is the impetus for a journey to find inner truth. In the film, Dorothy returns to the world of Oz to find its landscape in ruins and its citizens frozen in stone. Only she can find the ruby slippers and return peace to Oz. Only we can save ourselves, but we first have to remember who we truly are.
Stevens added: "The song has a fun guitar groove, so we gave it some bass and drums, and Angelo even recorded his first electric guitar solo. It's a sad song — being mostly about disillusionment — but it has a great party vibe too."
The two singles come with a shared artwork by Ghanian artist Daniel Anum Jasper that prominently features Judy Garland's Dorothy and Faune A. Chambers' Monica (seen above).
"Back to Oz" also arrives with its own animated video courtesy of director Alex Horan and animator Clara Murray. Watch that and hear the new tunes below.
Like previously released singles "Reach Out" and "Olympus," these new songs — the soulful, poppy "Back to Oz" and fingerpicked "Fictional California" — are inspired by the films Stevens and De Angelo watched while recording A Beginner's Mind. This time around, however, the songs are centred on poorly-received sequels: 1985's Return to Oz and 2004's direct-video Bring It on Again, respectively.
About "Back to Oz," De Augustine said:
This was a song that I had written mostly at home in California. We finished its lyrics after watching Return to Oz. The words reference an erosion of a central character's internal reality. A loss of innocence is the impetus for a journey to find inner truth. In the film, Dorothy returns to the world of Oz to find its landscape in ruins and its citizens frozen in stone. Only she can find the ruby slippers and return peace to Oz. Only we can save ourselves, but we first have to remember who we truly are.
Stevens added: "The song has a fun guitar groove, so we gave it some bass and drums, and Angelo even recorded his first electric guitar solo. It's a sad song — being mostly about disillusionment — but it has a great party vibe too."
The two singles come with a shared artwork by Ghanian artist Daniel Anum Jasper that prominently features Judy Garland's Dorothy and Faune A. Chambers' Monica (seen above).
"Back to Oz" also arrives with its own animated video courtesy of director Alex Horan and animator Clara Murray. Watch that and hear the new tunes below.
