Daniel Johnston Gets Orchestrated On Beam Me Up!

Daniel Johnston isn’t for everybody, but he’s definitely for everybody else.

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On March 26, German record label Hazelwood will put out Beam Me Up!, Johnston’s new album with the BEAM Orchestra, an 11-piece outfit from Holland. The new disc features a few new Johnston compositions (“Mask,” “Sarah Drove In Her Car,” and “Last Song”) as well as orchestrated versions of the lo-fi Texas icon’s greatest hits (“Devil Town,” “Walking The Cow,” and “True Love Will Find You In The End”). These songs will be familiar to anyone who picked up 2004’s The Late Great Daniel Johnston, Discovered: Covered, featuring interpretations by Tom Waits, Bright Eyes, Beck, M. Ward, and Flaming Lips, to name a few.

Johnston will tour Europe with the BEAM Orchestra in April and May. Meanwhile, father-son film team David and Jordan Miller are developing a biopic on Johnston, who was the subject of the riveting 2005 documentary The Devil And Daniel Johnston. The young Johnston will be played by actor Gabriel Sunday; Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly are rumored to be in talks to play the man as he is today.

Check out Beam Me Up! tracklist below:

1. Sarah Drove Around In Her Car
2. Syrup Of Tears
3. Must
4. True Love Will Find You In The End
5. Wicked World
6. Mask
7. Try To Love
8. Devil Town
9. Love Enchanted
10. Walking the Cow
11. Last Song
12. Beatles

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