New Haven, CT based artist Stefan Christensen has worked solo since 2015, after a decade and a half of playing in a wide range of bands; most notably as leader of avant-punks Estrogen Highs. His work is known for its contemplative and melancholic mood; frequently filtered through a home-recorded, DIY dirge that hits a wide range of sounds; from gentle acoustic improvisations and long form drone, to wiry post punk songwriting, freakout psychedelia and beyond. Christensen incorporates a 4-track home-recording style that often skirts the line between song and noise. A collage of textures and tones land his work somewhere in the realm of the much heralded Xpressesway, Siltbreeze and Twisted Village labels. 

Christensen has released numerous albums, EP’s and cassettes on labels from around the world. His 2021 “Cheap Things” full-length was released on London’s acclaimed World Of Echo label. And in 2024 he released “In Time,” his most expansive and realized work to date. The record breaks from his usual tape-fog home recording style, opting instead for a fuller studio sound and full band arrangements with backing from all members of psych stalwarts Mountain Movers and Headroom. The record is also notable for being the first to feature Christensen playing jouhikko, a Finnish folk instrument that he picked up while exploring his own familial heritage. Despite the changes the album remains firmly within the context of Christensen’s style. As Magnet Magazine’s Bill Meyer notes “an unbroken cord of somber sentiment connects ‘In Time’ to Christensen’s other work. Even in good instrumental company, he still sounds like a solitary mourner doffing his cap at the enormity of human folly.”

Christensen is also a frequent collaborator in the fertile New Haven free rock underground. He plays guitar for psych heavyweights Headroom (Trouble In Mind Records), as well as being a member of guitar improv trio Center. He also runs C/Site Recordings, a label that serves not only to release music from his New Haven cohort but the world at large.

PRESS
”But Christensen doesn’t just make music that sounds like the records he likes. He draws into his sources’ strengths and molds songs that are just as misshapen, stubborn, and undeniable. He plugs his jack into their ungrounded outlets and noises just as jagged and acrid smoke out of his amp. He sounds just as dismayed with the world around him as his inspirations did, and as the music spools it becomes apparent that he, like his sources, is standing on the outside of human industry, wishing he could escape and knowing that he can’t because he’s human, too. The Upcoming Flame mines a still-rich vein of ore. It could be that as long as the world of humans doesn’t make sense, music like this will.”
-Dusted

"Like a one-legged Crazy Horse sort of walking on the Xpressway towards the Twisted Village and stopping by Columbus, Ohio for a minute... ranging from Galbraithian over-before-it-began cassette-folk to V-3 like smutty, downer rock, accidently scratching a few Precious Metal lathe cuts in-between. Christensen manoeuvres the 4-track recorder like there is no tomorrow, mixing down dirge but at the same time oddly uplifting and smashing songs that are just as immediate as they are life-affirming somewhere in all their distorted and tape-saturated gloom." 
-I Dischi Del Barone

“Christensen’s delivery sounds almost desperately insistent, as if through repetition and willpower he’ll enact the chorus’ alchemical transformation. It also suggests a sense of simmering frustration, imminent collapse. [It] suggests an array of influences, including the homespun and punk-adjacent undergrounds of 1970s Midwest and 1980s New Zealand, though it surges into the present nonetheless.” 
-Impose

2017 Artist Of The Year
-Terminal Boredom


LINKS
stefanchristensen.bandcamp.com
csiterecordings.com
csiterecordings.bandcamp.com


Discography