Stephen Steinbrink
Disappearing Coin
Western Vinyl
18 August 2023
Stephen Steinbrink’s road to Disappearing Coin began with a video of a magician performing for a high school student seen on YouTube. As he watched again and again, three different points of view began to emerge, the first being that of the student watching the magic unfold, the second being the coin, both there and not there, inanimate yet filled with possibility, and finally there is the magician who facilitates the journey from the concrete realm into something more conceptual.
Despite evidence to the contrary, the world remains a place of awe and wonder, one Steinbrink rediscovered after taking a few years off to become an apprentice-stained glass glazer and beginning lay monastic study in Buddhism. Through all this, he began to look at the world with a new sense of wonder. The results displayed on Disappearing Coin illustrate a new relationship with his surroundings, one filled with playfulness and wonder.
Weaving disparate elements with a craftsman’s skill, Steinbrink creates touching and tender music, merging them with lyrics that go in unexpected directions. Poured Back in the Stream attempts to reconcile absurdity and fear in the aftermath of a near-death experience, “Survivor’s guilt? I laugh at thee / Showing up to work the next day after the shooting.” Realizing that he is no longer the same person, he asks, “What of the layers of my being?/ I’m a walking composite of all the shit I’ve seen.” Which is, of course, the eternal problem. One never remains the same.
On the other hand, Pony looks at his impulse to fight his Zen master brought on by a remarkably lengthy sitting meditation. Soft piano phrases contrast with simple synthesized sounds reflecting the struggle emerging in his brain. Steinbrink’s palette is filled with gentle phrases, contrasted with dissonant notes from a synth while maintaining a slightly goofy yet glorious edge on If There’s Love in Your Heart. Lyrically things get furthered as he recounts, “I want to build a house for a human caterpillar/ On a barren knoll on a spiral jetty/ I’ll skin my knees to prove that I can finish.” Whimsy and wonder go hand in hand, creating something remarkably different and alive.
The brief instrumental, Step’s Disappearing Coin, features piano and vibraphone in a wonderfully whimsical display. Yet, the other instrumental, It Is What I Want, But Not What I Need, while opening with the sounds of the tape coming up to speed, offers a relaxed glimpse into the beauty that exists despite whatever our current state of affairs may be, with keyboards and flute creating the music.
As whimsy and reality converge, Stephen Steinbrink’s Disappearing Coin lives in a world where rather than appreciating both sides of the coin, one gets focused on one to the exclusion of the other. Yet the coin and the album are multifaceted, and we gain as much meaning from each side as we do the other. Delightful and endearing, this coin should not disappear without a trace.
Order Disappearing Coin: https://lnk.to/disappearingcoin