For the past 12 years, Stephen Steinbrink has been producing smart, uncommon albums of indie-pop. His latest, 2018’s Utopia Teased, is easily one of the best in Steinbrink’s vast catalog. On it, 1999-era Prince synth grooves combine with Judee Sill-inspired ’70s folk-pop, playing like a strange love-child of Arthur Russell’s Calling Out of Context and Shuggie Otis’ Inspiration Information. Lyrically, the album is a glorious puzzle: the fantastical mixing with the mundane, the heartfelt with the absurd, revealing and obscuring, over and over. by Joshua James Amberson