Health comes first. It’s a term we hear a lot, and yet few of us understand what it means to have to put your health before everything, even your greatest passions. Californian songwriter Stephen does understand this, having spent the past year recuperating due to an auto-immune condition and following the release of his highly-praised debut album Sincerely. Through this time, Stephen was searching for the emotional catharsis he felt in the making of that first record, and as a result he wrote countless songs. In a Facebook post, Stephen recalls the moment where everything changed: “I must have made a hundred songs. It got to the point where my managers wanted me to finish some of them, but I didn’t want to. They were catchy and relatable, but I didn’t feel that purge of emotions I usually get. It wasn’t honest enough. It wasn’t ready. So my managers moved on. They told me that I wasn’t like their other artists, and had to let me go. It was a powerful moment. I remembered who I was in that moment. 'I’m not like anyone here.'” Following this revelation, the Silver Lake musician “went straight to the studio and embraced the fuck out of that. The realest music began pouring out of me. I stopped comparing myself to others - liberating myself from expectation and rediscovering my power. The creative process became effortless, playful, incredibly profound and emotional. Lots of tears, lots of screaming, lots of laughing.” Now, Stephen has released his second album, titled it’s too much love to know my dear, and from that we’re highlighting ‘Rainbows’. It’s a spacious indie-electronic track, in which Stephen daydreams of “rainbows beyond the horizon” and “places no ego can reach.” Listen below to this off-kilter track and enjoy the trip. - Hannah Thacker