''A Beginner's Mind'' is a collaborative album by American musicians
Sufjan Stevens and
Angelo De Augustine. The album was released by
Asthmatic Kitty on September 24, 2021. After being teased by Asthmatic Kitty for several days, the album was formally announced on July 7, 2021, along with its track listing and two singles, "Reach Out" and "Olympus". Daniel Anum Jasper created the album's cover artwork.
The album was met with widespread acclaim from
music critics
Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on ...
.
Background
''A Beginner’s Mind'' was created in a cabin in
upstate New York. There, Stevens and Augustine watched movies every day for inspiration.
Critical reception
The album received widespread acclaim from critics. At
Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which assigns a
normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an
average score of 81, based on 11 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave the album a 8.0 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.
In the review for
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
, critic Mark Demming felt that the album was "intelligent and well-crafted, and will appeal to fans of either Stevens' or De Augustine's recent work" but also that it was "less distinct than the music they create on their own."
Track listing
List of films taken from
Asthmatic Kitty's Instagram page.
Personnel
*
Angelo De Augustine –
production,
mixing,
recording, arrangement, vocals, bass,
bells, cymbals, drums, guitar, piano, synthesizer, tambourine, ukulele, whistle,
Wurlitzer
*
Sufjan Stevens – production, mixing, recording, arrangement, vocals, bass, bells, cymbals, drums, guitar, piano, synthesizer, tambourine, ukulele, whistle, Wurlitzer
* Josh Bonati –
mastering
* Daniel Anum Jasper – artwork
Charts
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beginner's Mind, A
2021 albums
Sufjan Stevens albums
Albums produced by Angelo De Augustine
Angelo De Augustine albums
Asthmatic Kitty albums
2021 collaborative albums
2020s concept albums