Lauren Hoffman • Choreography

When an artist announces that they are quitting the music business, it’s often wise to take a pinch of salt and throw it disbelievingly over all of their records. In reality, few stay gone for long.

In Lauren Hoffman’s case, it has been a fairly respectable five years since her sparse and sensual sophomore album, From The Blue House, was released independently in the UK. After dropping out of a university degree in the autumn of 2002, a spontaneous trip to India set the wheels in motion for the follow-up, via a stint in her hometown rock band, The Lilas. Certainly, many of the songs here have been thoroughly road-tested in one form or another over the last two years, including the waltzing ‘Out Of The Sky, Into The Sea’, which was formerly the title track of The Lilas’ sole EP. It’s no surprise then that the album has a slightly worn-in feel. That’s not to say it’s all been done before, but Hoffman seems to have cultivated a middle ground between From The Blue House and her exceptional debut, Megiddo, and so Choreography perhaps lacks the element of surprise that both those records possessed.

‘Broken’ makes for a promising start; a seductive, moody undercurrent propels Hoffmann’s perfectly ice-cool vocal along a shimmering hummable melody. Equally suggestive is the largely acoustic, slow-burning ballad ‘As The Stars’, though it is warmer in tone and boasts a lovely piano part in the bridge. Although some of the rockier numbers such as ‘Crush’ and ‘Hiding In Plain Sight’ lack the necessary bite to really impress, ‘Solipsist’ benefits from a more aggressive feel and is the first of a four-song suite that shores up the record’s second half. ‘Another Song About The Darkness’ is an ideal showcase for Hoffman’s most lucid yet languorous vocal, which escalates as the song progresses towards its palpably melancholic conclusion.

Though Choreography has neither the freshness of Megiddo nor the cohesiveness of From The Blue House, many favourable constants remain — Hoffman’s tantalising vocals and salient attitude are stamped all over the record. Not a great leap forward then, but a diagonal sidestep it might well be worth you taking alongside her.

[Fargo; February 13, 2006]

Tagged choreography, lauren hoffman