(2023) Stephen Steinbrink - Disappearing Coin
Review:
Stephen Steinbrink's songs make him sound like the kind of person who is good at looking happy as long as you're not looking too closely. Since the mid-2000s, he's been making cool indie pop records in his bedroom studio, and has been releasing a steady stream of homebrewed recordings that wrap languid and pleasing pop melodies around themes of disappointment and regret. Steinbrink reached the apex of this approach with 2018's Utopia Teased, which he wrote and recorded in the wake of the fire at the Oakland, California D.I.Y. venue Ghost Ship, a blaze that killed 36 people. While the music was often lovely, Utopia Teased was an act of public mourning driven by anger and loss, and while 2023's Disappearing Coin doesn't approach the lyrical darkness of that album, pay some attention to the lyrics and you'll hear a litany of letdowns and dashed hopes in Steinbrink's voice. In spite of that, the easy, bittersweet drift of Steinbrink's melodies is the sugar that helps the medicine go down; largely driven by vintage keyboard patches and his own multi-tracked harmonies, this feels like perfect listening for a Sunday afternoon with some clouds on the horizon. There's a dash of '70s soft rock in his graceful indie pop, along with a touch of the emotional resonance of the singer/songwriter movement that ran concurrently with the dawn of Yacht Rock, and even though the sadness and confusion of Steinbrink's songs make themselves known after repeated plays, his gift for tunes, the elegance of his craft, and the occasional bursts of musical playfulness (such as the runs up and down a marimba in "Step's Disappearing Coin") make it music worth going back to. It's tempting to imagine what Stephen Steinbrink's work would be like if he suddenly cheered up, but judging from Disappearing Coin, he's capable of creating beautiful and compelling music even on his bad days. — allmusic
Track List:
01 - Opalescent Ribbon
02 - If There's Love in Your Heart
03 - Cruiser
04 - Nowhere Real
05 - Pony
06 - Glitch Eternity
07 - Step's Disappearing Coin
08 - Cruiser (Reprise)
09 - Cool and Collected
10 - Comedy
11 - Who Cares
12 - Poured Back in the Stream
13 - Addicted to a Dream
14 - Nowhere Real (Reprise)
15 - It Is What I Want, But Not What I Need
Media Report:
Genre: dream-pop, indie-pop
Country: Mesa, Arizona, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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