Today, Stephanie Babirak announces her sophomore album, Rotten Fruit, arriving June 12th, 2026. Alongside the news, she introduces lead single, “Hey Cain,” out March 27th.

A NYC-based harpist, singer-songwriter, and composer, Babirak moves fluidly between the classical and contemporary worlds. Master’s-educated in harp performance, she maintains an active career in the classical sphere while simultaneously writing and releasing original jazz and art-pop music.

Rotten Fruit expands Babirak’s recent indie songwriting work, placing the harp at the center of a contemporary folk-pop landscape rather than a traditional recital hall. Blending the instrument’s ethereal tone with guitar, bass, drums, and synths, Babirak reimagines the harp’s classical roots in an unexpected setting. The album was written in collaboration with longtime creative partner Peter Scoma.

The result is a meditation on goodness, guilt, and the things we inherit—drawing from biblical imagery to explore disillusionment, love, estrangement, and what it means to be “bad.”

Lead single “Hey Cain” opens the story and world Babirak builds across Rotten Fruit. Borrowing from the story of Cain and Abel, the song explores a particular kind of loss—the grief and disbelief that comes from letting go of someone who is willing to lose you.

“This song borrows the story of Cain and Abel to explore the difficulty of accepting a very specific kind of loss,” Babirak explains. “It’s about the grief, sense of betrayal, and disbelief that comes from letting go of someone who is ok with losing you, and how strange it is to mourn someone who’s still alive… someone you still love very much. I was thinking a lot about the First Corinthians verse ‘Love is patient, love is kind’ when I wrote this song, and about how untrue that can be—love can be incredibly painful even when it’s real.”

While the album draws from inherited language and biblical symbolism, its focus remains present-tense: 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.

“Hey Cain” is out March 27th, followed by Rotten Fruit out June 12th. 

Stephanie Babirak is an NYC-based harpist, singer-songwriter, and composer who moves fluidly between classical performance and original indie work. A master’s-educated harpist, she continues to perform widely in the classical world while maintaining a parallel life writing and releasing jazz and art-pop music.

Babirak has been writing and collaborating with guitarist and songwriter Peter Scoma for more than fifteen years. What began during their undergraduate years at SUNY Purchase has evolved into multiple creative chapters, with Rotten Fruit representing the second iteration of their songwriting partnership. 

Producer and mixer Josh Benash (of Kiss Kiss) has also been a creative collaborator for over fifteen years. Babirak and Benash formed an earlier band together in the early 2010s called Vuvuzela, and their continued partnership brings a shared musical history to the sonic identity of this project. All three met while studying at SUNY Purchase, where their foundation in both classical and contemporary music shaped the hybrid sound they continue to refine. 

Peter J. Scoma is a guitarist, songwriter, and composer from New York. He has been a longtime collaborator and bandmate of Stephanie Babirak since the two attended Purchase College in Westchester, New York. Despite living far apart and being unable to rehearse regularly for many years, Scoma and Babirak have continued writing and developing music remotely. Through various creative phases, Scoma has embraced his open-tuning guitar style alongside Babirak’s harp as the foundation of their sound. In addition to his work with Babirak, Scoma is an active session and touring guitarist, contributing to a wide range of musical projects.