Stephen Steinbrink announces his first new album in five years, Disappearing Coin, the full-length drops on August 18 via Western Vinyl. In addition to the announcement, he shares floating, yet mysterious lead-single “Opalescent Ribbon,” which was written in partnership with Paul Frunzi. It’s accompanied by a self-directed video, which captures the vibrant warmth of life in the Bay Area.

On the track, Steinbrink offers: “In spring 2020, I somehow convinced my friend Nicholas Wilbur to let me hide in his studio, the massive Unknown in Anacortes, WA. I slept on the floor for six weeks, counted dust bunnies, and waited for songs. Nicholas encouraged me to use the studio during my weird residency and pulled out several API microphone preamps from the racks for me to use in a little recording nest I set up in the center of the massive live room. I followed the various musical threads that dropped in front of my face, collaging ideas into songs . Opalescent Ribbon was the result of a 50/50 collaboration between myself and Paul Frunzi of Ever Ending Kicks. Our method was to drink coffee at midnight and write together, overlaying melodies onto repetitive rhythms and improvised drones. It felt new and fun. I wrote the lyrics to verse one, and he wrote the second. I enjoyed finding meaning in the abstract images and cut-ups we invented. If I remember correctly, after tracking the song, we watched the classic George Miller 1998 psychedelic masterpiece “Babe” Pig in the City”.”

The title of Disappearing Coin, the new album from Oakland songwriter Stephen Steinbrink, comes from this short clip. “When I look at it now,” he says, “I relate to the kid, who’s obviously uneasy in his body, and going through the experience of being a teenager in the early 2000s growing up in a bleak desert town like I did. I also relate to the coin, an inanimate disc of possibility. And I relate to the magician, an absurd facilitator of sending what is tactile and concrete into the wispy conceptual realm.”

“I’ve watched it probably a hundred times,” he says. “It cracked me up but also blew my mind open— the feeling of wonder I experienced watching this video became a guide as I navigated new ways of staying in the realm of what’s both real and magical.”

Stephen Steinbrink
Disappearing Coin
Tracklisting
Western Vinyl

1. Opalescent Ribbon
2. If There’s Love in Your Heart
3. Cruiser
4. Nowhere Real
5. Pony
6. Glitch Eternity
7. Step’s Disappearing Coin
8. Cruiser (Reprise)
9. 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

Live Dates

11/10 – Seattle, WA @ The Vera Project
11/17 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill w/ Briana Marela
11/18 – Los Angeles, CA @ Genghis Cohen

Pre-order Disappearing Coin by HERE