GILGONGO RECORDS

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STEPHEN STEINBRINK - "Ugly Unknowns" CD (GGGR-027).
released January 2009.

STEPHEN STEINBRINK.
STEPHEN STEINBRINK makes his 11 song debut release under his own name after playing and constantly touring as
FRENCH QUARTER for the past several years. His last full length has been a personal favorite and this new one has
shaped up to be the same. Blissful and uplifting survival songs recorded throughout Arizona at various friends' homes.
Urgent, sincere and real.

MP3's: STEPHEN STEINBRINK - HUACHUCA CITY and WHEN IT'S EASIER.

select reviews:

Foxy Digitalis // Ear Conditioned Nightmare:
Formerly known as French Quarter--whose impressive debut LP is yet to be reviewed here much to my dismay/scheduling issues--Stephen Steinbrink is a 20 year old singer/songwriter whose compositions are far more achieved than about 95% of the other stuff out there in this realm. With an ear for catchy bedroom melodies, Steinbrink does an impressive job of leaving enough unanswered questions to lend the proceedings a mystery all their own.

The disc opens with "Breath of Fire," whose initial guitar line could be a Reich piece if the well placed drums didn't come in to drive the riff along. A small organ mimics it as well while Stephen sings lyrics that fit snuggly between his distinctly indie sound and a more lo-fi approach. "Overpassing" follows with a steady bass line and an steady crescendoing vocal melody. When the fuzz box comes in it moves this into grayer fields before the lines drift back to allow for his warm voice to shine through again.

"South of 13th" initiates a run of three songs that explore a darker side to Steinbrink's potential. A two chord minor melody sways about while the singer's vocals sing in mournful nostalgia. "Huachuca City" sounds like some reworking of "Blue Jay Way" or something, as its subtle psych sound is achieved by nothing more than an organ, drums, guitar and voice. There is a warm sorrow to the track is it undulates along. "In Six Days" closes the run with a lovely guitar line and soft, near whispered vocals about lost love. Steinbrink's knack for soft vocal lines tend to obscure how beautiful a voice he has--the fragility of his singing plays a huge role in the whole vibe of the album.

A song like "My Best Intent," with its sliding guitar and bongo drum rhythm, has a quirkiness that might aline Steinbrink with thos eworking in the "freak-folk" (terrible genre name...) realm, but Steinbrink's voice is far more singular, less interested in making his works strange than making them work. The following title track, whose bass line has an arbeggiation that somehow finds a space between"Stain Alive" and "She's Lost Control." It's one of the catchiest works on the disc. "On Sleeping," uses Steinbrink's minimal instrumentation carefully--he is a musician who is never afraid of letting his melodies and small moments speak for themselves, an impressive level of confidence that makes these work. "When It's Easier" is a light, near eighties Cocteau Twins style melody that sways about beautifully before "I Don't Want to Get Stabbed" finds him finger-picking in Simon and Garfunkel meets Dylan territory before a psych guitar phase comes out that re-situates it to Steinbrink's own sound world.

The disc closes with "I Don't Ever Want to Die," a gentle lullaby of a song whose overall sense of timid fragility recalls groups like Akron/Family and Grizzly Bear before moving into near Stereolab pulses. It's a wonderful album, and perhaps for the first time on this blog, done by someone who is working in an overtly pop-y realm. Steinbrink's strength of composition and maturity of execution make the album one that could/should harken far greater recognition of his work. Of course to say that he "could go somewhere" is absurd in this context. He already has. Let's just hope more are willing to go there with him.

It may not out yet, but definitely will be soon. Check Gilgongo's site out for more info on that.

Tiny Mix-Tapes:
4/5: Stephen Steinbrink watched my face get violently smashed into my girlfriend’s face two months ago at a show, and as my upper lip began to swell and gently ooze blood onto my front teeth, he asked me, “Whoa, dude, are you alright?” So, full disclosure: I see Stephen Steinbrink around town. I run into him at shows, around burrito places. I think I once borrowed his guitar at a gig. But I’d be hesitant to say that I know Stephen Steinbrink, because the man is a quiet one. When we talk, it’s brief. He seems aloof, maybe even distant.

That’s of little consequence, because Ugly Unknowns, his debut under his given name (his previous deluge of singles, EPs, CD-Rs, and full-lengths were issued under the name French Quarter) is communication enough. Steinbrink has the ability of songwriters twice his age; he can’t legally buy a fifth of whiskey, but can tear hearts out, and each two- or three-minute pop conjures up the image of a discarded Polaroid, existing as both a singular document of one specific moment and a fading, timeless artifact. "I left my home exhausted," he sings over a bed of intertwining, softly plucked electric guitars in opener “Breath of Fire,” and it almost feels like the line is unnecessary; he could coo nonsense syllables and the idea would be conveyed.

Steinbrink’s bedroom pop is stylistically nuanced, swiftly moving from the placid lull of the first track to something more menacing on “Overpassing,” a song that’s appeared in different forms on other French Quarter releases. "So fuck the inquisition/ And fuck your complacent life/ ’Cause I can’t love you like a husband/ I can’t love you like a wife," he sings before letting loose an overdriven riff on loan from Crazy Horse. Steinbrink’s twin secret weapons are his guitar playing and voice. Plenty of singer/songwriters are content to strum and whine, but Steinbrink gets inside the chords, finger-picking counter melodies and leads, while his voice is a unique statement, at once high and lonesome, like Neil Young, but fully present and compressed. On tracks like “Huachuca City,” his voice cuts through hissy noise, while on “In Six Days,” there’s precious little going on other than his words, multi-tracked over quiet guitars.

Ugly Unknowns never falls trap to sameness. The title track utilizes a curiously funky, head-nodding groove. “On Sleeping” brings to mind late ’60s pop, with its reedy organ line and shuffling rhythm, and describes a state of displacement: "I will take off my clothes/ And go to bed/ I think that I’m home enough." “When It’s Easier” is a real triumph, a tiny blast of subdued power-pop, marrying sun-drenched melodies with obtuse lines like "And I walk through your room/ Just cause I know where it is/ And I storm through your tomb/ Just cause I know it exists." The guitars slip and slide, and the chorus climbs a beautiful ascending melody: "Well who am I/ To tell a lie/ Fucked and tired." These little surprises — the juxtaposition of beat-down lyricism and sing-along pep, the jagged, anti-guitar solos — keep the album from falling into familiar cycles of self-absorbed, sad kid rock.

The album ends with two “I Don’t Want” numbers, “I Don’t Want to Get Stabbed” and “I Don’t Ever Want to Die.” The former rides a sunny wave, with a glorious fuzz guitar bridge and plunking electric piano, telling a tale of walking home through dangerous downtown Phoenix, where "The crackheads steal and hurters hurt." The closing track starts with just Steinbrink, voice and acoustic guitar, before a full backing of drums, keys, and bass come in to help deliver the chorus, "I don’t ever ever want to die/ To truly feel alone/ Tto truly have no home." The song ties the theme of the record together: the wanderlust that develops as a young man tours constantly, that develops as a young man gets older. The search for a place to call your own or at least a place that feels right. Steinbrink might not have found that place, but at least in the documenting of his search, he’s created something like it within the warm confines of his own record.

Sound as Language:
Normally going under the moniker of French Quarter, 20 year old singer/songwriter Stephen Steinbrink recently released the first album under his own name, entitled Ugly Unknowns. The album is full of dark bedroom pop that at first may seem completely harmless. However, upon repeated listens Steinbrink’s songs reveal a much deeper depth and a greater purpose.

Steinbrink’s vocals are reminiscent to Doug Martsch of Built To Spill and that is as good a starting point as anything…minus the guitar histrionics of course. The Shins also come to mind and I keep half-expecting to see “produced by Phil Ek” somewhere in the liner notes. Granted Ugly Unknowns is more lo-fi and lacks those certain production qualities. Though, that is actually beneficial to Steinbrink’s songs for they need no real studio embellishments to flourish and touch the listener at their very core. Steinbrink’s lyrics don’t deal in the abstract as they favor a literal “realness” instead. That directness brings to mind early Mountain Goats and The Microphones. The bold honesty that Steinbrink offers on Ugly Unknowns is infectious and hard to ignore.

Steinbrink’s songs, while entirely subtle, are rich with cunning melodies. Ugly Unknowns is heartbreaking in its delivery and startling in its confrontational nature. All the while, Steinbrink writes within the rickety, imperfect framework of a lo-fi pop song. Therein lies the simple brilliance and beauty of Ugly Unknowns.

Genre: Indie/Singer/Songwriter / RIYL: Elliott Smith, The Mountain Goats, The Microphones

Coke Machine Glow:
There’s a hefty bit of indulgent inanity in all of us, I think, and, like guts, some of us are better at keeping those tendencies in check than others. ‘Cause we all know that guy who has no filter, constantly bitching about dry skin and telling painfully unfunny stories, making social situations more tumultuous for all of us. Perhaps the worst incarnation of this utter lack of self-awareness is pity-seeking depictions of haplessness—I can’t believe I’m invoking the name of FML in a review in which I’d like to maintain some shred of credibility, but indulge me for a moment (yes, irony). What the fuck, my generation? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, carry on and be thankful, but to those in the know, FML is a forum for people— one would assume solipsistic fourteen year olds, but I have loathsome peers who use this—where people punctuate gripes like “I tripped down the stairs, and everyone laughed at me—even my girlfriend!” with “fuck my life.” It’s like Twitter for those with an excessive need to complain (I suppose Twitter’s good for that, too—by the way, we have one). Curiously, there are no posts in the vein of “I’m dying of malaria, and the nearest hospital is 46 miles away. The world doesn’t seem to care,” which is weird because you’d think people with lives that fucked would, like, get a computer already.

Which leaves me at (what?) my mild concern for Stephen Steinbrink, aka French Quarter, whose sweet fireside folk could make hot chocolate shiver with delight. French Quarter (2008) was so charming in large part because of its spry arrangements, but the lyrics had a certain wistful, confused tinge to them that stirred up images of a guy staring out his window, almost a bit agoraphobic in his outlook, expressing equal parts trepidation and hope for what lay outside his home. That sort of petrified wishfulness was acutely affecting and exhibited a careful implementation of words, which was particularly intriguing coming from a songwriter just leaving his teens. It seemed John McCauley might have had a competitor in the “raw, insightful folk dude” category, and he still might, but this feels like a stumble, a scraped knee, and an unnecessary emergency room trip.

Ugly Unknowns marks a more pop-oriented approach for Steinbrink than he’s ever truly realized, but it’s hardly a departure from before: He flirts with a momentous fuzzed-out climax on “Overpass” with success, and a handful of numbers seem to daintily lilt where their French Quarter counterparts were a bit more agile. The most noticeable change is in Stephen Steinbrink’s writing style, which seems to revolve entirely around Stephen Steinbrink at this point. It’s not something easily discerned on the first go round, but there’s an amplitude of less-than-interesting self-reflection here. Exhibit A: “I know absolutely nothing about how to hold a job.” It’s a valid fear, sure, and I can relate—my English degree isn’t gonna be raking in the feta anytime soon —but at twenty, most people don’t even know how to hold their liquor and own about two ties, let alone moan like they have a martyr’s stake in the greater economic turmoil facing our world. This motif of sweating the small stuff pervades the record as Steinbrink unbuckles the belt too readily, letting his inanity gut sag over the top button of his Levi’s.

The arrangements occasionally follow suit, with Steinbrink relying on chords and melodies that grow tiresome even over the course of their meager two-to-three minute lengths. “My Best Intent” grates as Steinbrink’s tenor flits over flimsy repetition, and “In Six Days” just sort of dies and fades into the wallpaper after thirty seconds. “On Sleeping” suffers from the same sort of approach; it seems Steinbrink, in an attempt to go minimal, forgot that the appeal of his music is often rooted in the dense, fleece-blanket warmth he creates by layering lo-fi haziness on top of itself to create faux-dense chambers for his voice to echo within.

Much of the stuff here is good; I criticize because I love. The velvety layers of “Huachuca City” burble along with a sort of flowing vitality that’s remarkable and the title track’s rising chords are mournful in the perfect way. But it’s odd in the most disheartening way to see a talent regress from quaint, observational insight into “I”-centric ballads that sometimes mope and shudder like a flag in dead wind. Unfortunately, those mopes aren’t terribly compelling, and while it’s perhaps too much to compare lines like “I can’t love you like a husband” to the shallow chatter of twits, expectations frame my perception too much in this case and I can’t help but see some of these lyrics as senseless proclamations. You’re better than that, Stephen