{"title":"CDs","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"the-ones-who-wait","title":"Denison Witmer - The Ones Who Wait CD","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe sound of The Ones Who Wait indicates a new maturity in Denison۪s musical career, a subtle sense of confidence in his voice and music.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Denison Witmer","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":254349227,"sku":"AKR098CD","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR098_cover.jpeg?v=1571262656"},{"product_id":"sisyphus","title":"Sisyphus - Sisyphus CD","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"line-height: 1.2;\"\u003eSisyphus is the new name for the collaboration between Serengeti, Son Lux, and Sufjan Stevens (formally s\/s\/s), whose new project under this moniker is a self-titled album partly inspired by the art of Jim Hodges, and commissioned by the\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca style=\"line-height: 1.2;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.walkerart.org\/\"\u003e Walker Art Center\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan style=\"line-height: 1.2;\"\u003e and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca style=\"line-height: 1.2;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thespco.org\/liquidmusic\"\u003e Liquid Music\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan style=\"line-height: 1.2;\"\u003e series in Minneapolis\/Saint Paul.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRead an interview by Dan Johnson with Sufjan Stevens about Sisyphus \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/asthmatickitty.com\/sufjan-on-sisyphus\/\"\u003ehere\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sisyphus","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":550259617,"sku":"AKR117CD","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR117-Digital-Cover-Art_q80.jpg?v=1571262673"},{"product_id":"sufjan-stevens-convocation","title":"Sufjan Stevens - Convocations CD","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eConvocations, \u003c\/em\u003ethe new instrumental album from Sufjan Stevens, moves like a two-and-a-half-hour electronic\/ambient mass for our present age of anxiety and dread; its 49 tracks work through the stages of grief and gladness with emotional mood music that is dreamy, dissonant, vertiginous, rhythmic, repetitive, urgent, and calm—that is, all the things we undergo when we inevitably live through isolation, uncertainty, and loss. Its five sonic cycles (\u003cem\u003eMeditations\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eLamentations\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eRevelations\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eCelebrations\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eIncantations\u003c\/em\u003e) replicate different stages of mourning, healing and catharsis, working both to soothe our unease while savoring a renewed sense of awe and wonder for being alive in these unprecedented times.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStevens initiated \u003cem\u003eConvocations\u003c\/em\u003e in response to (and as an homage to) the life and death of his father, who died in September last year, two days following the release of \u003cem\u003eThe Ascension\u003c\/em\u003e. It is, then, ultimately an album about death, and an album that reflects a year in which we have all lost so much. That said, this is not a personal record, but a universal one. \u003cem\u003eConvocations\u003c\/em\u003e is built on a shared experience that seeks to be honest about how complicated grief can be in these difficult times—the pain and separation, the anxiety, the unknown, the absolute joy of memory. This is also an album made in lockdown, when we were all cloistered in whatever space we had. \u003cem\u003eConvocations\u003c\/em\u003e arrives just as we begin to emerge from a year whose losses we will calculate for a lifetime. It is, then, right on time, as we begin to process our grief and try to carry on with it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sufjan Stevens","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":39431524122695,"sku":"AKR145CD","price":22.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/files\/APD_SufjanStevens_Convocations30_Square.jpg?v=1759251732"},{"product_id":"angelo-de-augustine-angel-in-plainclothes-cd","title":"Angelo De Augustine - Angel In Plainclothes CD","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAngelo De Augustine returns with\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eAngel in Plainclothes\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, his fifth album and most inspired \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ework yet—a deeply felt rendering of his multi-year journey of healing and renewal. The record showcases De Augustine's powerful melodies and poignant lyrics across tracks like the haunting elegy \"Empty Shell,\" the hopeful \"Spirit of the Unknown,\" and standout psychedelic country piece \"Mirror Mirror.\" Themes explore life's fragility, second chances, and picking up the pieces after an undiagnosed illness forced him to re-learn basic abilities: \"I'm trying to figure out who I am now,\" De Augustine says. \"I feel like I may have been given a second chance at life, and I'd like to live it.\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cb id=\"docs-internal-guid-ee1fc852-7fff-e1f1-56de-1a5dece0c07e\"\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eWritten, recorded, arranged, produced, and mixed by the artist at his recording studio A Secret Place in Southern California, the album marks his first time welcoming collaborators in years, including string arranger Oliver Hill (Kevin Morby, Helado Negro), harpist Leng Bian, background vocalist\/percussionist Wendy Fraser, as well as Thomas Bartlett (who produced De Augustine’s Tomb, St. Vincent, Bebel Gilberto) and Jonathan Wilson (Angel Olsen, Father John Misty), who played drums on and co-produced \"The Cure.\" The result is a powerful statement of hope: \"One of the most helpful things that kept me going was the people in my life telling me that everything was ultimately going to be okay. I hope these songs end up having the same kind of effect on people out in the world, and help them know that miracles are possible.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Angelo De Augustine","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42517226389575,"sku":"AKR155CD","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/files\/APD_AngeloDeAugustine_AngelInPlainclothes15_11.jpg?v=1777045935"},{"product_id":"sufjan-stevens-carrie-lowell-cd","title":"Sufjan Stevens - Carrie \u0026 Lowell CD","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \"Carrie and Lowell,\" Sufjan Stevens is a child again or, more specifically, the child character in the family of man drama that often but not always centers on the story of love given, or love forsaken, but isn't that the same thing to the poet? That the love Stevens sings about having left or given or been born to--thank you, Carrie--is a perceptible wound not only on the singer's throat, but his sleeve: he wears love's incomprehensibility, and the deep incomprehensibility of being a son, like a backing vocal on \"Carrie and Lowell,\" which is also filled with colors, hearts, trees, conclusions, and beginnings, all adding up to the kind of intimacy that caught my eye the morning I sat in the diner waiting for the sun to get stronger as I saw intimacy pass by while going about it's business, like something sung and felt by Sufjan Stevens on his new beautiful solitary and rich record filled with faith and disbelief and the resurrection of trust and dreams. - HILTON ALS \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sufjan Stevens","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42744573263943,"sku":"AKR099CD","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR099_Cover.jpg?v=1619868951"},{"product_id":"sufjan-stevens-javelin-copy","title":"Sufjan Stevens - Javelin CD","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eOver the course of his career, Sufjan Stevens has blurred distinctions between the major and the minor, between the details that color our existence and the big events that frame our lives. He has turned historical footnotes of States into kaleidoscopic pop, and rendered the immeasurable grief of loss with intimacy and grace. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eHis new album \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eJavelin\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e—Sufjan’s first solo album of songs since 2020’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe Ascension\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e and his first in full solo singer-songwriter mode since 2015’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eCarrie \u0026amp; Lowell\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e—bridges all these approaches. Sufjan uses the quietness of a solitary confession to ask universal questions in songs we can share communally.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eWhere \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe Ascension,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e lauded by \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe New York Times \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eas “a cry of despair and prayer for redemption,” used ornate but urgent electronics to square up to its moment, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eJavelin\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e begins more like a self-portrait, detailed yet plain. Yet whether listened to individually or as an album, these 10 songs become something much bigger, the entire experience of Sufjan’s 25-year career expressed in four-minute bursts. Choral, orchestral, and electric wonder: it all shows in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eJavelin\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e, all of it animating these songs as full spectacles. In each song we hear the vulnerability and candor of quiet starts, then Sufjan raising the stakes.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eAt times, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eJavelin\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e has the feel of a big team album production—but it is decidedly not: almost every sound here is the result of Sufjan at home, building by himself what sometimes feels like a testament to classic ’70s Los Angeles studio recording sessions. There are indispensable contributions from a close circle of friends; the harmonies of five singers who afford \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eJavelin\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e so much frisson: adrienne maree brown, Hannah Cohen, Pauline Delassus, Megan Lui, and Nedelle Torrisi. Bryce Dessner plays acoustic and electric guitar on “Shit Talk.” And, of course, Neil Young wrote the tender and mystic closer, “There’s a World.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eAnd speaking of the world: there is a permeable sense of world-building imbued in every corner of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eJavelin\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e, especially in the 48-page book of art and essays that accompanies the album. With a series of meticulous collages, cut-up catalog fantasies, puff-paint word clouds, and iterative color fields, Sufjan builds order from seeming chaos and vice versa. And toward the middle of it all are 10 short essays by Sufjan, another window into the process that informed \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eJavelin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eOn \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eJavelin\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e, Sufjan returns as we may know him best, offering vulnerable reflections on love and relationships, so that in listening we may see ourselves more fully.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sufjan Stevens","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42744574967879,"sku":"AKR171CD","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - No Booklet","offer_id":42744575000647,"sku":"AKR171CD-slim","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/files\/APD_SufjanStevens_Javelin07_Square.jpg?v=1727969437"},{"product_id":"sufjan-stevens-michigan-cd","title":"Sufjan Stevens - Michigan CD","description":"\u003cp\u003eComposed as a geographical tone poem, MICHIGAN follows a metaphysical expedition through the idiosyncrasies of middle America. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sufjan Stevens","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42744684511303,"sku":"AKR007CD","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR007_900.jpeg?v=1619869989"},{"product_id":"sufjan-stevens-timo-andres-conor-hanick-reflections-copy","title":"Sufjan Stevens, Timo Andres, Conor Hanick - Reflections CD","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca class=\"button_bandcamp\" href=\"https:\/\/sufjanstevens.lnk.to\/Reflections\/store\"\u003eBUY FROM UK\/EUROPE\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e“I'm constantly thinking about bodies moving through space when I'm writing for ballet – that is what has informed this music, first and foremost,” says Sufjan Stevens on \u003cem\u003eReflections\u003c\/em\u003e, his latest collaboration with choreographer Justin Peck. Originally commissioned and performed by Houston Ballet in 2019, \u003cem\u003eReflections\u003c\/em\u003e was written for two pianos and eleven dancers. A studio recording of the seven movements is now available; engineered, mixed and mastered by Ryan Streber with performances by pianists Timo Andres and Conor Hanick. Released via Asthmatic Kitty Records, \u003cem\u003eReflections\u003c\/em\u003e is, in Stevens words, about “energy, light and duality.” This piece follows on from several scores Stevens has created with Peck, including \u003cem\u003eYear of the Rabbit\u003c\/em\u003e (2012), \u003cem\u003eEverywhere We Go\u003c\/em\u003e (2014), \u003cem\u003eIn the Countenance of Kings\u003c\/em\u003e (2016), \u003cem\u003eThe Decalogue\u003c\/em\u003e (2017) and \u003cem\u003ePrincipia\u003c\/em\u003e (2019). “We have been working together for many years now,” says Stevens. “We respect and trust each other's work.” Peck and Stevens are currently collaborating on a dance theater piece based on Stevens’ songs from the acclaimed album, Illinois, to premiere at Fisher Center at Bard in June of 2023.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThere is a long tradition of using pianos to accompany dance – whether it is during lessons at the barre or for\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003erehearsals when hiring a full orchestra is prohibitively expensive – and Stevens was happy to further explore the instrument's capabilities. “Although I've never taken a lesson,” he says, “the piano was my first true love.” Self-taught as both a pianist and a composer, Stevens’ first instrument was the oboe, which he started playing in 5th grade. He played in orchestras from high school through college and listened voraciously to recordings of classical music alongside pop radio. He would often take breaks from the oboe by improvising on the piano, working out music he had heard in passing – pieces by Chopin, Rachmaninov and Bach. “I learned by ear, in a very rudimentary way, inspired by a wide range of music,” he says. “A lot of the work that I compose is anachronistic as it doesn't follow a genealogy of aesthetic. It can be a cornucopia of styles.”\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThat's the case with \u003cem\u003eReflections\u003c\/em\u003e, where listeners may detect a hint of Debussy, Stravinsky, Philip Glass, and even Bruce Hornsby. Born in 1975, New York-based Stevens is best known as a singer-songwriter. He has recorded over a dozen solo and collaborative albums. He received Academy and Grammy Award nominations for Best Original Song for Mystery of Love, which was one of three contributions towards the soundtrack to Luca Guadagnino’s feature film “Call Me By Your Name”. \u003cem\u003eReflections\u003c\/em\u003e is imbued with Stevens's broad experience in orchestral pop and electronica—but here the grandiosity is reduced to just two instruments.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe new recording benefits from lively and intelligent interpretations by pianists Andres and Hanick. The performances captured are bold, bright and skittishly virtuosic, cocooning the listener in glorious technicolor. Andres and Hanick bring percussive flair and a light touch to the fast-paced and varied score, digging into grumbling glissando, free-falling filigrees and dread-pan bombast with a joyful ease. Andres, a talented composer himself, is fully acquainted with Stevens' motivic development, having performed as the soloist on \u003cem\u003eThe Decalogue\u003c\/em\u003e (Asthmatic Kitty Records), while Hanick—who has premiered over 200 new piano works himself—seems undaunted by any technical challenge thrown at him (of which there are many here—intricate counterpoint, cross rhythms and moving tonal centers, to name a few. The score is available via G. Schirmer Inc.\/Wise Music Classical).\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe album artwork by Jessica Slaven – reminiscent in palette and form of the mid-century works by the Delaunays – is a quasi-graphic score. At first glance, the individual cells appear to be shifting, moving at odds with each other – but on closer inspection, each part is actually linked to the other. And so it is with Stevens's \u003cem\u003eReflections\u003c\/em\u003e; every kaleidoscopic turn brings new shades and shapes, tightening the weave; twisting, refracting, mirroring.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sufjan Stevens","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42744695062599,"sku":"AKR148CD","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR148-Digital-Cover_2000.jpg?v=1680658926"},{"product_id":"sufjan-stevens-the-ascension-cd","title":"Sufjan Stevens - The Ascension CD","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCD\u003c\/strong\u003e: includes disc, 16-page booklet of original drawings by Sufjan Stevens, and lyrics booklet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sufjan Stevens","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42744698011719,"sku":"AKR150CD","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR150-Digital-Cover_1000.jpg?v=1593028414"},{"product_id":"angelo-de-augustine-tomb-cd","title":"Angelo De Augustine - Tomb CD","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTomb \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003ereflects a beginning for Angelo -- both emotionally and in his career. It’s a motion towards positivity, addressing lost love, the worthwhile cost of honesty, and the ramifications of regret. In the end, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eTomb \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003eisn’t about burying or hiding something away, it’s about opening the seal and letting something new emerge. It’s about telling people how you feel when you feel it, instead of burying everything over the span of years. Like the best heartbreak albums, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eTomb \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003etransforms inward pain into universal beauty. The songs have helped him to heal and now they can help those who hear them. “This album is, at its core, a prayer for hope and clarity, and a prayer for love,” Angelo says.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Angelo De Augustine","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42747854585927,"sku":"AKR138CD","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR138---Digital-Cover.jpg?v=1758033250"},{"product_id":"angelo-de-augustine-toil-and-trouble-cd","title":"Angelo De Augustine - Toil and Trouble CD","description":"\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003ca class=\"button_bandcamp\" href=\"https:\/\/store.asthmatickitty.com\/products\/angelo-de-augustine-toil-and-trouble-bundle\"\u003eBUY TOIL AND TROUBLE BUNDLE\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003ca class=\"button_bandcamp\" href=\"https:\/\/store.asthmatickitty.com\/products\/angelo-de-augustine-toil-and-trouble-t-shirt\"\u003eBUY TOIL AND TROUBLE T-SHIRT\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe fourth solo album from Angelo De Augustine, \u003cem\u003eToil and Trouble\u003c\/em\u003e exists according to its own quixotic logic, inhabiting a psychic landscape as sublimely mystifying as a fever dream or fairy tale. In creating such an all-enveloping body of work, the Southern California-based artist spent nearly three years working alone and exploring the vast expanse of his imagination. “This album came from thinking about the madness of the world right now and how overwhelming that can be,” says De Augustine. “I used a sort of counter-world as a guide to try to gain some understanding of what’s actually going on here—I had to take myself out of reality in order to try to understand reality.” At turns bewitching and devastating and ineffably lovely, the result is the most visionary work yet from a singular songwriter, revealing his profound capacity to alchemize pain into extraordinary beauty.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eArriving on the heels of 2021’s \u003cem\u003eA Beginner’s Mind\u003c\/em\u003e—a critically acclaimed collaboration with Sufjan Stevens—\u003cem\u003eToil and Trouble\u003c\/em\u003e marks De Augustine’s first solo effort since his breakthrough album Tomb (produced by Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman). In a return to the self-contained approach of his 2015 debut Spirals of Silence and 2017’s Swim Inside the Moon, De Augustine wrote, arranged\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e, recorded, produced, and mixed \u003cem\u003eToil and Trouble\u003c\/em\u003e, shaping the album’s ornately detailed sound by performing on 27 different instruments (including such oddities as a xylophone made of glass). In the midst of that highly experimental process, he endured an ephemeral but nightmarish period of otherworldly sensations and supernatural visions—an experience that briefly disrupted the album’s creation but in the end helped to enrich \u003cem\u003eToil and Trouble’s\u003c\/em\u003e immense emotional depth.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAlthough an abundance of original and mythical characters populate the songs of \u003cem\u003eToil and Trouble\u003c\/em\u003e—Peter Pan, Miss Havisham, Christopher Robin, to name a few—the album opens on the quiet sorrow of “Home Town,” a despairing yet dreamlike track born from De Augustine’s reflection on a tragic mass shooting that occurred near his former residence. “It felt like if something like that could happen in this little town, then nowhere was safe,” he says. “And that feeling of not being safe anywhere is what led me to start thinking about a lot of themes on this record.” Next, on “The Ballad of Betty and Barney Hill,” De Augustine mines inspiration from one of the stranger chapters of human history: the account of a rural New Hampshire couple who claimed to have been abducted by aliens in the early 1960s. “It’s a bizarre story, and of course nobody knows if it’s true, but it’s probably the UFO abduction story that’s got the most credibility,” De Augustine notes. Spotlighting the unbridled ingenuity of his sound design, “The Ballad of Betty and Barney Hill” unfolds in unearthly textures achieved in part through his use of elegantly warped field recordings of ambient noises like cars, frogs, and teapots, as well as the extremely rare DG-1 Stepp Guitar synthesizer (an item invented in the 1980s by a British instrument designer named Stephen Randall). “It is a mysterious instrument unlike anything I have encountered,” says De Augustine, who adds that “there are entire worlds waiting to be discovered within it.”\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAll throughout \u003cem\u003eToil and Trouble\u003c\/em\u003e, De Augustine magnifies the mesmeric effect of his songwriting by uncovering new and wholly unexpected possibilities within the album’s vast array of instruments, many of which he’d never worked with before. “Memory Palace,” for instance, interweaves lush Mellotron tones and delicately layered percussion with the bell-like timbres of a Mustel celeste (a type of small piano invented by Auguste Mustel in 1886). “I loved that instrument since I was a kid and went to see The Nutcracker, and found out that the magical sound you hear in ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ is the celeste and the Glockenspiel piano playing together,” De Augustine explains. “The celeste I have now was made by Auguste Mustel, who gave Tchaikovsky the celeste he used to compose parts of The Nutcracker ballet, so that feels very special to me.” Meanwhile, on “Another Universe,” a Japanese guitar synthesizer known as the Unisynth lends a gloriously cosmic quality to a track whose lyrics echo the intense longing at the heart of \u003cem\u003eToil and Trouble\u003c\/em\u003e (e.g., “If I created my own world\/Minds would be open and unfurled…The galaxy would be a guide for love”).\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eAnother piece laced with the celeste’s sweetly luminous tones, \u003cem\u003eToil and Trouble’s\u003c\/em\u003e title track closes the album with a heavy-hearted reverie reflected in the cover art: a painting created by Ghanaian artist Daniel Anum Jasper, depicting an anthropomorphized and wild-eyed cauldron surrounded by test tubes and spell books and brightly blooming opium poppies. “After three years of creating everything myself, I’d gotten to a place of feeling stuck and not knowing how to finish this record—but the moment when I got the cover art from Daniel, I knew the way out,” De Augustine recalls.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eWhile De Augustine refers to the making of \u003cem\u003eToil and Trouble\u003c\/em\u003e as a painful and emotionally demanding process, each track embodies the kind of rarefied grace that can only come from a certain purity of expression. “For me songwriting has always felt like something that I need to do, and even if I don’t understand why, I completely trust that feeling,” he says. And by fully surrendering to his instincts, De Augustine ultimately arrived at a selection of songs whose transportive power is both immediate and indelible. “When I made the album I was so disheartened by the world that I needed to use an alternate world to get away from it,” he says. “But even though it’s a very personal record, it also feels more broad than that—like something bigger than just me and my story.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Angelo De Augustine","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42747854946375,"sku":"AKR152CD","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR152CDCD_Disc2-1_1.jpg?v=1681854937"},{"product_id":"sufjan-stevens-illinois-cd","title":"Sufjan Stevens - Illinois CD","description":"\u003cp\u003eLike the self-proclaimed \"Spiderman\" who climbed Chicago's Sears Tower with no harness, Sufjan Stevens scales dusty prairies, steel factories, and two hundred years of history in the second installment of his 50 State Project, \"ILLINOIS\", a 22-track anthemic tone poem to The Prairie State.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sufjan Stevens","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42747855208519,"sku":"AKR014CD","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR014_900.jpeg?v=1757963614"},{"product_id":"the-welcome-wagon-esther-cd","title":"The Welcome Wagon - Esther CD","description":"\u003cp\u003eWelcome Wagon's fourth album\u003cem\u003e Esther\u003c\/em\u003e explores themes of homecoming and faith, recorded after the couple's transformative sabbatical journey.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Welcome Wagon","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42747857207367,"sku":"AKR149CD","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR149_2000x2000_9c5fbf60-209d-4f33-bb52-35c574cabe8e.jpg?v=1661888456"},{"product_id":"half-handed-cloud-flying-scroll-flight-control-cd","title":"Half-handed Cloud - Flying Scroll Flight Control CD","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHalf-handed Cloud’s John Ringhofer began writing songs for what would become \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eFlying Scroll Flight Control\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003ea few months after the release of 2010’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eStowaways\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e album.  He’d married, moved out of the Berkeley, CA church he’d lived in since 2003, and into an Oakland, CA co-housing community.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe album features a 5-person female choir, manipulated recording tape, fuzz bass, clarinet, some piano, a child’s Magnus air organ, rhythmic zipper, trombone, a cushioned stylophone stick, and intermittent backpacker guitar.  As a holdover from the Belgian demos, Ringhofer and friends also frequently repurposed objects into instruments for homemade sound effects—not unlike Beuys’ use of honey, fat, or hare’s blood as painting mediums.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eFlying Scroll Flight Control\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003eexhibits a restored perception of mystery, the magnetic draw of arcane and peculiar visions.  It gathers sound and supplies it with structure, harmonizing the rift between the physical and the metaphysical.  These are songs that sing in multiple spaces.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Half-handed Cloud","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42747858321479,"sku":"AKR121CD","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR121_Cover_Art.jpg?v=1571262673"},{"product_id":"sufjan-stevens-the-age-of-adz-cd","title":"Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz CD","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Age of Adz\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e (pronounced odds) is Sufjan Stevens’ first full-length collection of original songs since 2005’s civic pop opus \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eIllinois\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e. This new album is probably his most unusual, first, for its lack of conceptual underpinnings, and second, for its preoccupation with Sufjan himself. The album relinquishes the songwriter’s former story-telling techniques for more primal proclamations unhindered by concepts: there are few narrative conceits or character sketches; there are no historical panoramas, no civic gestures, no literary maneuvers, no expository illustrations drenched in cultural theory, no scene, setting, conflict, resolution, or denouement. Sufjan has stripped away the fabric of narrative artifice for a more primitive approach, emphasizing instinct over craft. The result is an album that is perhaps more vibrant, more primary, and more explicit than anything else he’s done before. The themes developed here are neither historical nor polemical, but rather personal and primal (if even a little juvenile): love, sex, death, disease, illness, anxiety, and suicide make appearances in a tapestry of electronic pop songs that convey a sense of urgency, immediacy, and anxiety as never before seen in this songwriter. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sufjan Stevens","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42747949678663,"sku":"AKR077CD","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR077_AoA_900.jpeg?v=1689199537"},{"product_id":"the-welcome-wagon-welcome-to-the-welcome-wagon-cd","title":"The Welcome Wagon - Welcome to the Welcome Wagon CD","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe debut album by The Welcome Wagon unveils a ramshackle sing-a-long enterprise of a Presbyterian pastor (the Rev. Vito Aiuto) and his wife (Monique) wrestling out the influences of folk music, religion, popular culture, and church tradition in a collection of songs that is as soulful as it is good-humored.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Welcome Wagon","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42747949809735,"sku":"AKR045CD","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR045_900.jpeg?v=1571262663"},{"product_id":"denison-witmer-american-foursquare-cd","title":"Denison Witmer - American Foursquare CD","description":"\u003cp\u003eAmerican Foursquare is a meditation on empathy, on love, and on the meaning of home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDenison began writing \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eAmerican Foursquare \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003eafter he and his family relocated from Philadelphia to his hometown of Lancaster in 2014, trading their 800-square-foot row home for a 100-year-old house on the edge of Lancaster City. Denison wrote and recorded the songs as a response to the major life changes of moving and domestication, all the while taking a general hiatus from music to start a carpentry business and spend time with his wife and small children.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDenison began recording American Foursquare with Thomas Bartlett (Sufjan Stevens, The National, Norah Jones) and finished\/mixed in Seattle, WA with Andy Park (Death Cab For Cutie, Pedro The Lion, Noah Gundersen) with additional string arrangements and vocals by Abby Gundersen and electric guitar and mandolin by Aaron Campbell.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Denison Witmer","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42748049195079,"sku":"AKR140CD","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/Denison-Witmer---American-Foursquare.jpg?v=1619870064"},{"product_id":"sufjan-stevens-timo-andres-the-decalogue-lp-cd","title":"Sufjan Stevens, Timo Andres - The Decalogue CD","description":"\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCatalog: AKR135\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe title of \"The Decalogue\" has a touch of the grandiose: it means \"The Ten Commandments.\" Yet this score, composed by Sufjan Stevens for a dance work choreographed by Justin Peck that premiered with the New York City Ballet in May of 2017, is quiet and experimental. Stevens's piano score, as played and recorded by Timo Andres, sounds like etudes in the Romantic-modernist tradition, as if prompted by Debussy. With \"The Decalogue,\" coming digitally, and on vinyl and CD, Sufjan is making—gently, without ostentation—new departures.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sufjan Stevens","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42759672692807,"sku":"AKR135CD","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR135-Digital-3000x3000.jpg?v=1571262677"},{"product_id":"sufjan-stevens-the-greatest-gift-cd","title":"Sufjan Stevens - The Greatest Gift CD","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe Greatest Gift is a mixtape of outtakes, remixes and demos from Sufjan’s 2015 album Carrie \u0026amp; Lowell. The release is available in translucent yellow vinyl and yellow cassette.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThis collection serves as a companion piece to the Carrie \u0026amp; Lowell Live album released earlier this year (and as an expansion to the original album). In the same way the live show featured re-interpretations of the songs from Carrie \u0026amp; Lowell, the mixtape unveils new remixes by several longstanding collaborators including Roberto C. Lange (aka Helado Negro), Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman), and James McAlister (aka 900X). The album also features Sufjan’s own remix of “Drawn to the Blood.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe mixtape includes a few alternate and\/or demo versions of songs from the original album. The digital release also contains an iPhone demo of the song “Carrie \u0026amp; Lowell.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe mixtape features four previously unreleased new songs, “official” outtakes from Carrie \u0026amp; Lowell (they were recorded at the same time as the album). These include “Wallowa Lake Monster,” “The Hidden River of My Life,” “City of Roses,” and “The Greatest Gift.” This new material,  in its investigation of love, life, death, God, and the beautiful state of Oregon, serves as a contemplative companion to the original album. We hope you enjoy.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sufjan Stevens","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":42759684423751,"sku":"AKR134CD","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/products\/AKR134-Digital-Cover-Art-3000x3000.jpg?v=1619869970"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0185\/9528\/collections\/noun_CD_1646197_1.png?v=1619869723","url":"https:\/\/store.asthmatickitty.com\/collections\/cds.oembed","provider":"Asthmatic Kitty Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}