[Cover photo credit to David Zayas]

New York City-based harpist, singer-songwriter, and composer, Stephanie Babirak moves between the Classical and contemporary worlds, blending the harp with the setting of Folk Pop. 

Last month, Babirak announced her sophomore album, Rotten Fruit, due for release June 12th, 2026. She’s now released the single and video for “Waterline.”

Babirak explains:

Waterline is the most harp-forward track on this album. 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.

The album title Rotten Fruit grew out of the lyrics of this song and is a reference to a Bible verse about bad trees bearing bad fruit (i.e.the idea that you learn who or what something really is by paying attention to what it actually produces), because at a certain point you have to believe what people do, not what they say. 

Written in collaboration with longtime creative partner Peter Scoma, Rotten Fruit is a “meditation on goodness, guilt, and inheritance.” Drawing from biblical imagery, the album explores themes of “disillusionment, love, estrangement, and what it means to be perceived as ‘bad’.”

The album asks: What do we do when words and actions don’t align? What happens after clarity arrives? Rotten Fruit “doesn’t offer easy resolution—it documents the slow shift from disbelief to acceptance, and the uneasy freedom that follows.”