Kevin Bronson on May 22nd, 2017

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Angelo De Augustine’s songs ought to come wrapped in tissue paper, such fragile things they are. On the surface they are aching, lo-fi scribbles, the kind of recordings that could pass for some artists’ demos. In a bigger sense, though, they are all the sound the 24-year-old singer-songwriter needs. De Augustine, who released his debut album in 2014 and an EP the following year, last month signed to Sufjan Stevens’ Asthmatic Kitty Records, which on Aug. 25 will release his new album “Swim Inside the Moon.”

Stevens himself animated the video for De Augustine’s new song “Crazy, Stoned & Gone,” a playful collage of cutouts and chalk for the songwriter’s plea for better times: “People hoping the time’s coming / when the world feels peace for the day,” De Augustine sings as if he’s in the next room — and in a way, he is. Unlike his previous work, the new album was recorded in his Thousand Oaks home on a reel-to-reel tape machine. The singing and guitar playing were recorded in the bathroom on a single microphone, with no overdubs — which meant a lot of do-overs. “Occasionally my dogs would bark on a really good take,” he says. Some of the songs were made on his mother’s 100-year-old piano in the living room as well.

Not only was the recording process painstaking, but it took a while for De Augustine to even get started on a new album — on the final night of his previous tour, he was stricken with the whooping cough. It sidelined him for months, and, he says, “I wasn’t thinking much about making a record.” He continued to write songs, though, and when his voice returned he set up shop at home, making use of natural reverb. “A sound behind the voice,” he says. “I noticed that when you sing off a reflective surface you hear two voices. One is the representation of yourself and the other is similar to a shadow that follows the sound. I was compelled to isolate that voice and bring it more to the front of the songs because in many ways I feel more connected to and comforted by that voice following me.”

||| Watch: The video for “Crazy, Stoned & Gone”

||| Also: Stream “Truly Gone”