Music like a warm hug from an old friend
What’s the deal? Stephen Steinbrink has been churning out recordings at an intimidating pace for a decade — some under his own name, some under the pseudonym French Quarter — but until the peripatetic, Arizona-raised singer/songwriter’s 2014 album, Arranged Waves, stopped me dead in my tracks as it emanated from behind the counter at my neighbourhood cheese shop a couple of weeks ago, I must confess I had no idea of his existence.
What a bounty to be missing out on all this time. Steinbrink’s delicately damaged, ever-so-gently psychedelic janglepop is like a comforting hug from an old friend who understands how dwelling too much on the faults, failures and fatal frailties that dog this brief existence can make it very hard to get out of bed in the morning because he’s been there, too.
He sounds like a man who might linger a little too long in the dark sometimes, but his weightless soft-rock melodies and gentle high-register delivery consistently beckon you toward a way out. It’s so pillowy that all the existential angst and psychic torment of tunes like “A Simple Armature of Your Ideal World” and “Brand New Manic Brain Holder” go down very easily indeed. Fans of Elliott Smith, Big Star, Donovan Woods, Globe of Frogs- era Robyn Hitchcock and even Christopher Cross will be enthralled. New album Anagrams is due July 1.
Sum up what you do in a few simple sentences
“I am from Arizona, U.S.A. Even if I’m not aware of it, this informs basically everything I do,” emails Steinbrink from some point on his latest trans-American road trip. “I write melodies and words and try to find the perfect way to make them seem right together. I’ve been doing this for 10 years. A connected obsession is driving my car from place to place. It’s not always my intention, but I don’t stay in one place for very long. I like the metallic smell of recording studios. That’s it, essentially.”
What’s a song I need to hear right now?
“Now You See Everything.” Hard to pick a favourite ’cause they’re all of a certain disaffectedly brilliant and bittersweet piece. But this is the most recent one with a video so . . .
Where can I see him play?
At the Smiling Buddha on April 28.