The body of work of Steady Holiday – the recording project of songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Dre Babinski – has been unfolding like an inner conversation. On second LP Nobody’s Watching, Babinski inhabited characters of deceit and duplicity, whereas its successor Turn The Corners Gently went the opposite direction, becoming a record of empathy and generosity for oneself and others. The peculiar thing is that sonically speaking, none of Steady Holiday’s records are all that far apart. Her compositions are polished and inviting, peppering in feathery R&B grooves, baroque strings and cinematic motifs, never obfuscating the words. It feeds the notion of Steady Holiday as a project wishing to be understood rather than to be experienced.
The biggest thematic jumps always seem to come within the minutiae of Babinski’s soft-spoken storytelling, which forces you to lean close in rather than to zone out. So where does one go from generosity and empathy? Steady Holiday’s fourth album Newfound Oxygen attempts to come to grips with that very quandary. We all have that voice inside that shouts ‘But what about me?’ Babinski shrewdly interrogated notions of selfishness and charisma through fictional narrators on Nobody’s Watching; on Newfound Oxygen she wrestles with her own sense of self, her wants, her needs and her ambitions. And how combining those things with everyday responsibilities becomes a harder puzzle to solve as you age.
From the first few notes and syllables of “Bomb Shelter Comatose” you’ll notice Babinski’s cut-and-dry sense of humor is her greatest ploy in fleshing out inner reflections. Over a sparse synth drone, she wonders (to paraphrase Peggy Lee) if that is all there is. And by ‘that’, the we mean being stuck in “7 out of 10”-purgatory of Just Okayville. It’s for certain a common junction a lot of 30-somethings to come to terms with. You’re aching to know whether you’ve achieved all you wished to achieve, and crossed off enough items on the bucket list. What if ‘good enough’ is never good enough?
As the synth swell softly intensifies, Babinski entertains the thought of doing something impulsive, if only to shock her out of her system. Would it do some good, or “do me in to the point where I’ll never take a risk?” She questions out loud whether living in safe familiarity is simply inertia, or bred out of her fear of the truth. She reluctantly stumbles to a conclusion: “It’s good enough to live / but it’s not living / It’s not what I want”, as a soft sax flourish bolsters those words like an encouraging whisper. From that part on out, the song lifts off like a musical score, yet Babinski remains too even-keeled to exult in starry-eyed dreaming. Thoughts of what’s holding her back from transcending – like some of her contemporaries – linger on.
Newfound Oxygen comes to grips with the sound of settling: how do you balance the affirmations you acquired with that’s what is left to be desired? Second cut “The Balance” quite literally reckons with that thought, juxtaposing swooning 70s pop stylistics with icy piano touches. “My dreams they would haunt me a lifetime ago / Now I climb a mountain with plenty of rope,” she shrugs, embracing the comforts of everyday, outside of the unruly nature of touring, something she is still openly at odds with. The plainspoken clarity in which Babinski expresses her sentiments feels playful and inquisitive, and whenever she reaches an emotional primer (“Dreams / When you’ve earned them / Nothing sweeter”) you catch yourself actively nodding in approval.
For every revelation, however, there is that sobering question prowling about. Exactly how does one could make the ‘going through the motions of adult life’ sound sonically compelling? In the past, Babinski has numerously displayed her creative wits with imagination vs. reality-scenarios. The video for “Open Water” (off of debut LP Infinite Best), for instance, starts like your average acoustic studio session, but then sucks you into a blackened forest landscape out of some kind of fantasy novel. On “Love And Pressure” this interplay is executed more understatedly, drawing from her experiences of acting in commercials for a living, and how you have to summon exaggerated expressions that often don’t correspond with how you feel inside.
If Newfound Oxygen was a game of truth or dare, Babinski resolutely chooses the ‘truth’ option each time, almost as a way to test her own resolve. She takes a deep sigh on “Asleep”, wondering whether all her experiences up to her mid-30s wasn’t just a dream. What more is there to truth besides what’s in front of you? Newfound Oxygen almost feels like a mad science experiment to hunt down and isolate the truth in its core essence. Is it feasible to hold onto without all the lofty dreams and ambitions? Or is it just emptiness one will find? More than ever, Steady Holiday’s arrangements – plus production magic from Midnight Sister’s Ari Balouzian – reach for the quote-unquote ‘unremarkable’ and ‘ordinary’, rooting in traditional pop melodicism.
Though some might consider this a conservative move, at this point in Steady Holiday’s creative phase, it feels like the bravest thing Babinski can do. “Under The Moon”, for example, sounds as if Fiona Apple’s rendition of The Beatles’ “Across The Universe” has reached sentience and evolved into originality. It doesn’t reach for cosmic sublimity like “Across The Universe”, it settles for “we’re all living under the moon”, keeping the world relatively small. Still, Babinski holds down the ‘ooh’-vowel in moon with a sensual coo, like a secret wish waiting to be fulfilled. It’s one of the more touching moments on Newfound Oxygen. In its resolute quest to remain grounded in reality, the moments when Steady Holiday gets carried away in her though process tend to resonate deeper. On “High Alert”, Babinski demands trust and transparency from an unknown lover. That mounting tension is relieved in a taut dramatic crescendo, “Show it when you know you have nothing to conceal.”
Sometimes the navel gazing, no matter how witty and incisive, tends to pile up on Newfound Oxygen. To be fair, ascertaining your inner truth takes some clever navigating around the platitudes and clichés, and Babinski does a great job at that for the most part. On “All Weekend”, she frugally concedes “there are no guarantees, only wishes”, leaving you to wonder whether nature or nurture wins out. Newfound Oxygen‘s artwork shows Babinski in slo-mo free fall, about to hit the ground, yet the video for the title track ends with her flying off like some kind of DC superhero. It’s as if to say that with the right balance, you can land on your feet and launch yourself skyward anew. On Newfound Oxygen, the art doesn’t transcend the individual behind it, but Steady Holiday has at least found a way to make both order and chaos work in her favor.
