Bass Player and techno DJ/producer from Chicago IL.

When she recorded her last album, Hello Goodbye, Choffel was pregnant with her first daughter. Now a mother of two, she’s viewing life from the perspective of someone dealing with the ups and downs of parenthood, a long-term partnership and a post-pandemic world, not to mention her music career and radio DJ job.
She knew she needed to step away from her daily routine to get in the zone for this one. She also wanted to work with producer and longtime friend David Garza, who had just become a father and was staying close to home in L.A. She booked a flight; he called drummer Amy Wood and bassist Sebastian Steinberg, his co-producers with Fiona Apple on her Grammy-winning album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters.
On Bird By Bird, Choffel finds a noirish sweet spot and hits a new creative peak, segueing from tunes reflecting her love of ’80s pop to smoky jazz grooves on which she channels her inner Peggy Lee. “I believe she is truly the voice of Austin,” Garza gushed in a recent interview. “I hope that with this album, folks worldwide will get hip to her artistry.”
Choffel already had a reputation as a singer-songwriter and performer who glides among genres, eagerly exploring too many influences to fit neatly into any category. Bob Marley, Lauryn Hill and Mary J. Blige are significant inspirations, along with hooky, Madonna-ish dance-pop, Brazilian music, Stevie Wonder and her Mexican heritage. Performing professionally since she was 14, Choffel has won several national songwriting competitions and earned a 2009 Austin Music Award for Best Indie Band, prompting her to muse, “Maybe it actually means ‘independent of genre.’”
Bird by Bird highlights include “Summer in the City,” on which her breathy alto, fanned by Elias Haslinger’s slinky sax, builds from smoldering embers to a barn-burning flame, and “New York,” her “Fever”-pitched Big Apple love note. Evoking images of a chanteuse in elbow-length gloves working the crowd in a dimly lit jazz club (or on Broadway), it could become another classic ode to the city she inhabited for three years after her season three stint on The Voice (about which then-Rolling Stone writer Jessica Hopper said, “[she’s] one of the only singers on anyone's team ... who had the sort of voice you'd want to listen to for an entire album”).
She notes that her writing was more declarative in the past, stating, “This is how it is.” Now, she’s asking, “How Do I Make You Feel” and “What Do You Want from Me.” In the former, a quietly powerful song of longing almost belied by its sweet, sensual melody, she wants to know, “How do I make you feel what I want you to feel?”
“This album is so much about just wanting to connect,” she says. “It’s for people who yearn to be seen, held, heard, touched.”
 
But she also examines a particularly searing example of social injustice there’s simply no way to fix: the killing of Breonna Taylor, shot in her sleep by police who stormed the wrong apartment. “‘Fast Asleep (Breonna)’ is the most specific song I've ever written,” Choffel says. “It originally was a folk song, but Davíd encouraged me to explore more of a gospel/Nina Simone approach.” Moody and forceful, with percolating percussion and Adrian Quesada’s haunting guitar, it notes the irony that the future EMT, had she lived, might have responded to similar situations—and saved others’ lives.
That pain is tempered by hints of hope in “Little By Little” and especially “Bird by Bird”—which floats on a reggae vibe and tropicalia lilt. Choffel wrote it for her stepdaughter, who was struggling with depression and anxiety at the time. “Bird by bird and stone by stone,” she sings, “we can piece this world together / you don’t have to be alone.”
After cutting essential tracks in L.A., Choffel and Garza moved to the famed Sonic Ranch in West Texas—where she’d long dreamed of working, and he could perform his annual music festival gig nearby. Guest contributions (including violin by Warren Hood and Carrie Rodriguez) were recorded at Austin’s Cedar Creek Studio.
As she’s done in every stage of her career, Choffel continues to evolve. With Bird By Bird, she’s stretching her wings — and soaring to fascinating new heights.

Shout Section Big Band is Chicagoland's most exciting 10-20 piece big band!  We perform for weddings, corporate events, city concerts, swing/lindy dances and for live music venues!  We have a band to fit your event and budget!  Our musicians, singers and tunes are the absolute best in the Midwest.  We are also ... extremely fun to work with!

Aaron Harris is a singer/songwriter living in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood. In 2005, Aaron relocated to Chicago from his hometown of Detroit, Michigan, and has since worked tirelessly establishing himself as one of Chicago's premier singer/songwriter's.  Fronting the 9-piece soul/rock group, Harris & The Mood, Aaron has become a familiar face around the music scene with listeners and fellow musicians alike.
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With the recent release of "From Harris & The Mood With Love!" a 2-song EP & "Rooftop Sessions Present: Harris & The Mood Live at Navy Pier", expect to be see and hearing a lot more from Aaron Harris Music!

William Steffey has been scribbling in colorful notebooks and making music on any instrument he can find since his early teens. After brief spasms of higher education in Iowa City and Chicago, he doubled down on the art life and released a string of sixteen albums in the Art Rock style. Press reviews are voluminous and wildly polarized, while the music has enjoyed airplay on hundreds of radio stations worldwide. William has kept an online journal since the late 20th century, filling the glowing screen with post-modern musings, dreamscapes, and lyrics that encompass both. 

William's track "Want it All" is featured on the 2-LP Situation Chicago vinyl compilation along with Jeff Tweedy, Poi Dog Pondering, and OK Go, with 100% of proceeds going to Chicago music venues affected by Covid-19.

William's thundering swan song SPARKLE drops on Friday, July 23rd.

Tim Koelling is following