After a decade of touring, secluded home recording sessions and seven albums deep, Stephen Steinbrink has emerged this year with a new LP titled Anagrams, dedicated to minimal, melodic pop.
Recorded in a retrofitted analogue studio in a lofty, de-sanctified church in the secluded island town of Anacortes, Washington called UNKNOWN, with the help of engineer Nicholas Wilbur, the recordings that make Anagrams carry the space and expansiveness from where they were born. Steinbrink has so far shared two singles off the new album including “Absent Mind” and “Building Machines” which was recently featured as one of SPIN‘s ‘7 Favourite Songs of the Week’.
Anagrams is the unpacking of identity: “I don’t care about continuing in a tradition of songwriters, and I rarely intentionally self-identify as one. I always wonder if my most recent song is the last one I’ll ever write. I try to be more concerned with being open, to imagine myself as a rock or a wrapper or nothing at all. Whenever I can get close to that state of mind the songs come easy, but it seems arbitrary, almost like they would’ve existed with or without me. I think it’s a noble pursuit, to try to be nothing.“
Tracklist:
1. Absent Mind
2. Building Machines
3. Psychic Daydream
4. Impossible Hand
5. What Identity
6. Canopy
7. I’m Turning Inside Out
8. Dissociative Blues
9. Anagrams
10. Black Hole/We Don’t Say Anything
11. Shine A Light On Him
12. Next New Sun
“Lushly arranged pop songs, the listener can tie and untie Steinbrink’s vivid and unrelated images into something meaningful” -NPR
“Recalls the magic pop purity of Arthur Russell… its minimalism manages to feel enlightened and transformative.” -Pitchfork
“Melodic and self-assured. Steinbrink delivers his knotted lyricism with a smooth lilt.” -Stereogum
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