"Steven Bridgewater delivers a shambolic, emotionally raw slice of outsider art that trades polished pop sheen for pure, nervous energy."
To promise a classic pop song while recording on what sounds like a busted four-track tape machine requires a special kind of ballsy gumption. Yet, that is precisely the territory independent artist Steven Bridgewater wades into with “Fly Boy Boy Fly”. In a musical ecosystem dominated by sterile, corporate-polished sheen, Bridgewater’s unapologetic embrace of outsider music aesthetics feels both rebellious and slightly unhinged. There is no attempt to hide the scuff marks here; instead, the frayed edges of his anxiety and romantic displacement are pushed right to the front of the mix. Does it make for a comfortable listen? Hardly. But there is a raw, twitching nervous energy to the track that commands attention.
Getting old-school with a shambolic, clattering rhythm section is a good start. “Fly Boy Boy Fly” captures Bridgewater’s knack for burying sweet, melancholic earworms beneath a scratched and tortured sonic underbelly. Choppy indie guitar flourishes and woozy, detuned synths drive the song forward, threatening to collapse under their own weight at any given second. Bridgewater constructs a noxious tour of lo-fi bedroom pop, bristling with the violence and anxiety of a crumbling relationship. The lo-fi production is so deliciously unplaceable—gliding between tape-hiss warmth and metallic, almost accidental dissonance—that it forces the listener to lean in just to decode the noise.
