Everything appeared to be coming together for Angelo De Augustine with the release of Toil and Trouble in 2023. It followed his full-length collaboration with Sufjan Stevens, to whose Asthmatic Kitty label he was signed, strengthening his position as the chamber-folk auteur’s heir apparent. But behind the scenes, De Augustine was falling apart. As he recently revealed to The Guardian , he had collapsed at his home in Los Angeles halfway through recording the album, on Halloween 2021. Days of medical testing produced no diagnosis, but the sense that his body was failing persisted. He pushed himself to finish because he was sure he was going to die. No score yet, be the first to add. If Toil was a secret dispatch from the edge of oblivion, Angel in Plainclothes , De Augustine’s new album, is openly about finding his way back—renegotiating how to live, sing, and play guitar while managing symptoms with causes he doesn’t fully understand. He suspects chronic stress is at the core.…