Smoldering, and cinematic, The Steoples’ sophomore album ‘Wide Through the Eyes of No One’ is as contemplative as it is captivating: A record that dwells in avant-soul depths, while inviting listeners to embark on a personal journey of the soul.

‘Wide Through The Eyes Of No One’ – The Steoples

The title points to the open state or transcendental moment when one becomes aware of “being” itself unattached to being a particular identity. Hence looking wide through the eyes of no one.

Smoldering, and cinematic, The Steoples’ sophomore album is as contemplative as it is captivating: One that dwells in avant-soul depths, while inviting listeners to embark on a personal journey of the soul. Rich alike in sound and substance, Wide Through the Eyes of No One is utterly entrancing and dazzlingly immersive – a transformative experience that invites us to delve deeper into ourselves, our surroundings, and existence at large.

Wide Through The Eyes Of No One - The Steoples — Wide Through The Eyes Of No One – The Steoples

I humbly reacquaint you with the ground
It goes, ”what is never lost is never found”
This is the revelation of love
This is the conversation to have
The only non-location ever known
Where every story happens, everybody’s home
Follow the implications my love, this is an invitation
In the music I can lose it
and the good news I can use it
Hear the good news
Baby I can lose it all, it’s good news it’s good news!

Cause every other avenue must fail
From despair through surrendеr walk the trail
Into the sweet salvation of love
This is a meditation on “here we are”
In the music I can lose it
and the good news I can use it
Hear the good news, baby I can lose it all
It’s good news, it’s good news!
In the music I’ve no form, in the music I’m gone
Here the good news
Baby I can lose it all, it’s good news it’s good news !
The good news
Hear the good news
Now here !!
Here the good news!!
The good news

Released August 6, 2021 via Stones Throw Records, Wide Through The Eyes Of No One is a cerebral and sonic triumph. The follow-up to The Steoples’ 2017 debut album Six Rocks finds the LA-based duo of GB (aka Gifted & Blessed, Frankie Reyes) and Yeofi (aka A Race of Angels) fusing styles into a refined, radiant melting pot of sound, contemplating some of life’s bigger existential wonders along the way.

As the duo tell Atwood Magazine, the record came about organically. “I can’t remember which song was first, but it must’ve started with either myself or Yeofi passing a rough sketch to the other and an idea spontaneously arising to take it further in an unexpected direction, and then passed back over for that process to continue until each piece was finished,” GB says – capturing the process, while admittedly keeping things cryptic. “Once all the pieces you hear on the record were complete, the record felt complete, and that’s when we were finished. My vision was that I saw us making something totally different from what had been done before, something totally unpredictable even to us as the conduits of the music. That did not change over the course of recording this.”

Yeofi agrees. “From my perspective there is no story per se,” he says, “other than it is the latest installment of a musical relationship between two friends that has spanned across over a decade. The vision, I think, was the same as usual: To creatively express ourselves through the mediums of music and words. The vision stayed constant throughout the process.”

Every song on this record is its own intricate, inviting world: From the sweet, stirring opener “Everybody’s Song” to the soothing closing tracks “Procession” and “Alas Alice” (and everything in-between) The Steoples let their vibrant soul, jazz, and R&B roots coalesce and intertwine. Highlights like the hypnotizing “The Good News” evolve over the course of three busy, bustling minutes, leaving us in a far different place from where we started. Meanwhile, tracks like “In the Dance” and “The Real Wealth” find the duo flexing compelling vocal harmonies over deceptively nuanced instrumentations and intoxicating rhythms. The Steoples tight, majestic, and fearless when it comes to exploring the realm of sonic possibility.

“The title points to the open state or transcendental moment when one becomes aware of “being” itself unattached to being a particular identity,” Yeofi says. “Hence looking wide through the eyes of no one. [It] points to presence in the unconditioned mind… It’s those fleeting moments of transcendence that we’ve all experienced, but they rarely register. This raw view gives a brief window into the true nature of oneself, pre-identity, unconditioned.”

To love this life all the way through this paradise
Trace your way back to the place that you’re from
Out of the mind into the open.
I’m going back to the place I’m from
That’s living free looking wide through the eyes of no one.
I’m looking wide,wide through the eyes of no one.

“Me” is the Island where we learn the game
Out of the ocean into “stay in your own lane!”
Where is the door to just before
The view so wondrous who could ask for more.
So how to get back to the place I’m from
When I never left looking wide through the eyes of no one.
I’m looking wide through the eyes of no one.

Faith is a maybe when you can’t decide
Fate is the razor that cuts as you ride
What IS from the fiction or what you might like
The raw from the story now your hands are tied.
So give back to Caesar what Caesar is do
The weight and the glory the burden of you
And there is the doorway you’re already through
Who can describe looking wide through the eyes of no one.
I’m looking wide through the eyes of no one.

GB refers to the record with pride, leaving it up to listeners to decide what this special collection can mean to them. “I feel that it captures a feeling which is indescribable and cannot be named, which gives the music its uniqueness, doesn’t quite fit into any specific genre, doesn’t really have a clear reference point or influence like a lot of other artists or bands do… and it just shows us as we are,” he says. “I’d like for the listeners to just let the music speak for itself and not go into the listening experience looking for what I try to get them to get from it. I’d love for the listener to have that kind of experience, something personal and totally their own without instructions on how to listen to it. I am personally in further awe of life itself by having participated in the creation and release of this album, something I couldn’t have imagined or predicted that resulted in something that for me is special and powerful.”

Wide Through the Eyes of No One is an alluring, many-sided musical adventure. Ultimately, it’s a soundtrack for stepping out of oneself; for letting go and floating in an ether of buoyant, charged, and smoldering soul. Every listen promises to uncover something new – both about The Steoples’ artistry, and about ourselves. Experience the full record via our below stream, and slip away for a moment or two.

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