Stephanie Babirak Photo credit: David Zayas
New York City-based harpist, singer-songwriter, and composer Stephanie Babirak continues to carve out a unique space between classical and contemporary music, weaving the harp’s ethereal textures into the framework of folk-pop. Today, she shares “Waterline,” the second single from her upcoming sophomore album Rotten Fruit, due June 12.
Deceptively dreamy, “Waterline” pairs airy harp and soft, expressive vocals with lyrics that cut through with a quietly biting edge, capturing the dissonance between what people say and how they act. The track also lends its name—and central metaphor—to the album, which draws on biblical imagery to examine disillusionment, estrangement, and emotional clarity.
“Waterline is the most harp-forward track on this album,” Babirak explains. “It came from being told one thing and experiencing something totally different: people saying that you’re close, that you matter to them, and then acting in ways that really don’t line up with that. There are a lot of time signature changes throughout the song that are meant to musically portray disconnect. The song is about recognizing that disconnect as hypocrisy and choosing to walk away.”
Written in collaboration with longtime creative partner Peter Scoma, Rotten Fruit unfolds as a meditation on goodness, guilt, and inheritance, using biblical imagery to interrogate moral judgment and the tension between perception and reality.
While the record leans on symbolic language, its focus remains immediate: what happens when words and actions fail to align—and what comes after that realization sets in. Rotten Fruit doesn’t offer easy resolution so much as it traces the slow shift from disbelief to acceptance, and the uneasy freedom that follows.
“Waterline” is out April 24, with Rotten Fruit arriving June 12.
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