What first strikes the ear when the music of Angelo De Augustine starts playing is how soft his voice is. The California-born singer-songwriter gently strums on his acoustic guitar while he whispers his impressions on time going by, on his dreams (More Than You Thought To Use) and traveling and touring (On My Way Home). On songs like Crazy, Stoned, and Gone, the resemblance with Elliott Smith’s work is obvious. Almost 20 years after the indie folk legend’s suicide, his esthetics continue to live on and influence emerging artists. De Augustine also blends in the Bon Iver angle, as you almost feel you are sitting on the artist’s bed as he is singing alone in his bedroom. That feeling of closeness really strikes a chord. “Swim Inside the Moon” is De Augustine’s second full-length album, released in April 2017, its first on Asthmatic Kitty Records, a few years after was published his self-released debut album, “Spirals of Silence” (2014), and a 3-song EP follow-up, “How Past Begins” (2015). Label owner Sufjan Stevens directed and personally created the animation for the young musician’s first ever video clip, for the song Crazy, Stoned, and Gone. “Swim Inside the Moon” is a very consistent album: from start to end, each song is pretty much made of the same cast. Soft whispered male vocals, one or two acoustic guitar tracks. Nothing else. It can get a bit redundant when the listener is unfamiliar with Angelo De Augustine’s material but that feeling kind of fades away as subtilities are discovered along the way. On My Way Home is more dynamic than others, a song on which your foot could even tap the beat. Angelo De Augustine writes and records music in Thousand Oaks, California — a suburb north of Los Angeles, where he grew up. ANGELO DE AUGUSTINE Swim Inside the Moon (Asthmatic Kitty, 2017) -Genre: intimate folk -In the same ballpark as Bon Iver, Elliott Smith, Mountain Goats Buy the album on the artist’s BandCamp page Follow the artist via his Facebook page Listen to videos on the label’s YouTube channel Réagissez à cet article / Comment this article commentaires / comments
