Stephen Steinbrink details new album, In A Split Mirror

In A Split Mirror will arrive as Steinbrink's tenth album on Mansions and Millions' new imprint, Sedimentary Archive. The album is said to make a deliberate shift from the rougher edges of his previous work towards spacious, minimal arrangements. "Magic Mirror" arrives today, inspired by a chance encounter on a New York City subway that Steinbrink had back in in 2013.

"A man came on the train who could've been my twin, only he was in his late 50s or early 60s, and I was 25," he recalls. "We looked uncannily similar, down to every article of clothing we were wearing and the tiny micro-gestures in how we carried ourselves. That scene came back to me when writing 'Magic Mirror', thinking about past selves returning to the present through memory, somewhat warped, recognizable but othered."

Steinbrink made most of In A Split Mirror on his own at Headlands Center for the Arts, the artist residency on a decommissioned military base that he helps run. The album features contributions from longtime collaborators including pianist Andrew Dorsett (LAKE), saxophonist Cole Pulice, drummer Chase Kamp and pedal steel player Nick Levine, but is led by Steinbrink guitar, drum machines and organic synth pads, with the songs centring on the suggestion that "identity may be least true when it seems most coherent".

In A Split Mirror artwork

In A Split Mirror tracklist

"It's Not My Dream"
"Fragmented Soul"
"Calcified"
"I'm a Swimming Pool"
"I'm a Worm"
"Black Waterfall"
"Magic Mirror"
"Magnum PI"
"Torch Moth Yarn"
"Driving Around in Arizona"
"Opening Windows in May"