Bryan has released two titles on Laughing Outlaw: Vessels in 2011 and Heart Vs Mind in 2013.
The most treasured albums always seem to conjure a picture or colour in their feel, be it a dark, glacial and desolate landscape to a sprawling suburban estate with translucent greens and deep sky blues. It’s these evocative images that give an album special, personal meaning.
For Sydney singer-songwriter Bryan Estepa, that snapshot is a weathered sepia-faded Polaroid of a couple walking hand in hand along a beach promenade. It could be the US West Coast, or the Australian east coast – but that’s the beauty of his new album Vessels, it carries you wherever you feel it can go. Oh, and then there are the melodies.
“I feel like I’m definitely getting better at writing those pop hooks without it sounding like I’ve tried so hard. It’s become a lot more natural,” Estepa says. “And I feel like when I write songs, they’re starting to sound like me.”
Vessels, was a gritty live-sounding album; you could almost hear the sweat dripping off the walls. In contrast, Heart vs Mind is a smoother-sounding thing, full of the echoes of seventies California rock that you’d expect from a boy from Western Sydney who grew up listening to classic hits radio playlists. “I get to celebrate my love for AM radio like songs on this record,” says Estepa. “It’s pretty much ingrained in me.”
