The Sampler: Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine, deepState, Torres

Tony Stamp delves into a movie-themed collaboration between American singer-songwriters Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine, two dance floor-focused EPs from Tāmaki producer deepState, and an eighties-inflected tribute to longterm lust by Torres.

A Beginner’s Mind by Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine

It’s always interesting to see the ways artists reinvent themselves. It can often seem the key to sustaining a long career - bands like The Beatles and Radiohead did it a bunch of times.

I’d put American singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens on that list too. He’s gone through different phases, putting out ambient soundscapes and digital rock operas to go alongside his hushed acoustic output. He’s also done a number of collaborations over the last five years, including a brand new album alongside the sympatico Californian songwriter Angelo De Augustine. 

Augustine has released three solo albums prior to this, the first in 2014, and has a sound very similar to Stevens’ - not just his airy falsetto and general lack of volume, but a good amount of crossover songwriting-wise. They frequently sing at the same time here, and in the moments where one of them will take it solo it took a few listens to figure out who was who.

Stevens and Augustine wrote these songs during a month-long residency, and part of their creative process was watching and writing about movies. One of those movies was Return To Oz, which gives a theme to the album’s most buoyant track, ‘Back To Oz’.

I like the lack of pretension in using movies as jumping off points for songwriting, but these are earnest, often sad tunes. According to Augustine, “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.”

The pair take their craft very seriously. That quote is from an interview for AnotherMag.com, where they talk about their daily routine of songwriting separately in the mornings, together in the afternoon, and watching the movies at night. Those included All About Eve, Silence of the Lambs, Point Break and Bring It On. I also caught a reference to Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It.

But my favourite comes from one of Steven’s favourite movies, John Carpenter’s The Thing. If you haven’t seen it, it involves a shape-shifting alien let loose in an arctic base, and the realisation among the men there that it could be imitating any of them. This has clearly influenced the song '(This is) The Thing', which has Stevens singing about paranoia, and what’s really inside people, over a sparse piano.

There’s a telling quote from Stevens in that interview where he says “Sound itself, without any kind of organisational principles, can be pretty rude and disruptive. And I’m really sensitive to sound, I like peace and quiet.”

That should be obvious listening to these delicate songs. Augustine is new to me but I’ve been a fan of Stevens for a long time, and while this album didn’t immediately knock me out in the way his previous efforts Seven Swans or Carrie and Lowell did, after a few listens its carefully constructed melodies started to get to me. There are multiple goosebump moments throughout, usually when the songs build to a swelling chorus.

It’s remarkable that both these men are able to invest so much feeling into what rarely rises above a whisper. One of the most delicate sees Augustine take the lead on a song that’s counterintuitively called ‘Murder and Crime’. With its talk of violence, I wondered if that was the song about Silence of the Lambs. The way Augustine bends his voice upwards into falsetto is one of those goosebump moments I mentioned. 

I will say that, as much as Sufjan Stevens reinvents himself occasionally, it’s the albums when he comes back to this kind of acoustic balladry that really stick. He and Augustine have taken reasonably frivolous inspiration from Hollywood movies, and turned it into an album of songs that are often sad, and sombre, but impeccably crafted, and always thoroughly soothing. 

Deep Summer and MMXXI by deepState

Listening to this pair of EPs by a local dance producer, I wondered how this music would sound if you’d never been to a rave, or dance party, or bush doof. These days I listen to electronic music at home or portably all the time, but my introduction to it happened in clubs at various hours of the morning via incredibly bass-heavy speakers, and while I can’t say one is better than the other, in that live setting it makes such perfect sense.

I think that Tāmaki Makaurau producer deepState understands that. At least, listening to her music transports me back to that very specific headspace. Dance music is communal, and deepState seems dialled into that feeling of losing yourself on a dance floor, surrounded by people having a similar experience. 

If you’re not familiar with the genre, you might miss how musically rich it actually is when you listen past the beats. That track '99' follows a quite stately chord progression; if you transposed it to a piano it wouldn’t be that dissimilar to classical music. The mix of melancholy with uplift is a distinctive dance music trait - even that track's disembodied vocals sound mournful, but the propulsion of the rhythm turns it into something euphoric - I doubt it’s coincidence there’s a track here called ‘Euphoria’.

Both those cuts are taken from the new deepState EP Deep Summer, and they’re notably different to her previous EP MMXXI, which came out just a few months ago. On that one she ran through a series of different approaches that felt rooted in the nineties to me, from acid and tropical house to something approaching the new age music of Enigma. 

‘Parallel’ takes something like a hip hop rhythm and layers it with the sort of synth arpeggios that deepState seems to favour, and 'Watching the Sky' incorporates percussion to great effect over eerie synth washes.

On Deep Summer though, three of the four tracks operate on a shuffling garage rhythm - in fact the final track is called ‘Garage’. What impresses me most about these two releases is that cycling through different genres isn’t the end goal - these are all clearly made by someone with their own unique sensibility, and the differing tempos and so on are jumping off points.

On ‘Garage’ the interplay between kick and snare clatters over a lumpy bass pulse, a strong sense of melody, and like all these tracks, the feeling of chasing something transcendent.

Thirstier by Torres

If you’re au fait with internet or American parlance, you’ll know ‘thirsty’ is now used to convey romantic ardour. An album came out earlier this year that riffs on that term in its title, but contrary to its usual usage, this isn’t about a fleeting, passionate encounter, it’s about a long term relationship, and how, rather than the romance fading, the songwriter is just getting thirstier.

Torres' real name is Mackenzie Scott, a Florida-born indie musician whose first album came out in 2014. Her music is often icy and sterile by design, but on this album - yes, in response to the pandemic - she wanted to make something energizing. “As big as the biggest records I’ve ever heard” is how she puts it. 

The title track has a climatic chorus like a scruffed up version of the eighties anthems Pat Benetar used to make. “The more of you I drink, the thirstier I get” Scott sings in the chorus, and she’s made it clear she’s referring to her long term girlfriend. “Keep me in your fantasies, even though you live with me” goes another line.

Her partner’s name is Jenna Gribbons, and Scott has said their works are in dialogue with each other. Scott turned thirty prior to releasing this album, and has said that aside from her relationship, the biggest inspiration was the feeling of self-actualization that has come with age.

Many of these songs are fist-pumping anthems, and the biggest of them has the intentionally corny title ‘Don’t Go Puttin’ Wishes In My Head’. On that one Scott sings “For a while I was sinking, but from here on out I’m swimming”. Listening to an album like this, where someone is celebrating their happiness, I’m reminded how much music I hear is about the opposite. 

The album was co-produced by British producer Rob Ellis, whose directive to Scott was ‘Sit down with a guitar and write classic songs’. She had studied commercial songwriting at university, but shied away from it on previous Torres albums, preferring to follow her impulses rather than carefully crafting hooks. 

The new direction is evident, even though a lot of these songs are whimsical in their way. The flighty ‘Constant Tomorrowland’ runs through a complex melody in its verse, then pulls back for a grand chorus that celebrates a potential progressive future.

As the album goes on it segues into something resembling the industrial music Torres has made in the past. The chilly ‘Kiss The Corners’ is the rare song here that feels a bit despondent, but Scott’s layered voice is soft and gorgeous.

Thirstier is full of muscular tunes that reach back to the eighties and nineties for their bulky riffs, and Scott’s voice matches them, oscillating between a throaty roar and sugary falsetto. 

On ‘Drive Me’ she extends the car metaphor to include the phrase ‘hands on ten and two’, and turns it into a catchy hook. It’s deceptively simple, and when you listen further you realise that, like many of these songs, it’s about being happy in love, and believing that things are only going to get better.