Collection: Stephen Steinbrink
Stephen Steinbrink is a 27 year old songwriter and recording engineer born and raised in the arid desert of Arizona and currently floating around the western USA, dividing his time between the green spaces around Olympia, Washington and the concrete flats of Oakland, California. Having spent the better part of a decade touring North America and Europe in busses, vans, and trains, his wanderlust travels shaped his stunning breakthrough album Arranged Waves, released last year on Melodic. Truly engaged with the unintelligible and absurd, Steinbrink is more cultural observer than 21st century busker with his intelligently cool left-of-centre approach to a sincere melody, using pop tropes to convey something deeper. At the same time, it’s his lyrics that mark Steinbrink out as a true punk troubadour trying to how to figure out how to be a person in the world.
“I grew up in Phoenix; it’s bleakness through and through. A de-centralized suburb of nothing.” he says. “There are so many ghosts of the recession – the bowling alley I went to as a kid has been abandoned. Friends’ houses have been bulldozed. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen a burning down house while stuck in traffic. All these empty buildings from my childhood are unsettling and symbolic of something, but I don’t know what. I need to write more songs to figure that out.”
A prolific artist hopelessly dedicated to his form, he has released 6 full length albums, a scattering of short run EPs and singles on a variety of formats, in only short 7 years.
A true passenger of life, Stephen Steinbrink is more cultural observer than 21st century busker with his intelligently cool left-of-centre approach to a sincere pop melody. At the same time, it’s his lyrics that marks Steinbrink out as a true punk troubadour trying to make sense of the world. Beyond apparent stream of consciousness Arranged Waves is an album about lost images with each song an attempt to describe moments of banal beauty without manipulation of their inherent romance.
