Lauren Hoffman(VII)
- Soundtrack
- Composer
- Music Artist
Lauren Hoffman is a songwriter, singer, musician, and recording artist. Songs from her 6 albums have been featured in film and TV such as Homicide: Life On The Street, Palmetto, and many episodes of South of Nowhere.
Hoffman got her professional start at age 17 when David Lowery (Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven) and engineer John Morand invited her to record her bedroom compositions in their studio, Sound Of Music Studios. The resulting moody and dark alt-pop album, Megiddo, was released by Virgin Records in 1997 to critical acclaim in the US and France.
While mid-production on her second album, Hoffman parted ways with the corporate major label world due to artistic differences, retaining ownership of her songs and masters. From the Blue House, "produced with elegant simplicity by Hoffman, with an assist by Brian Kehew" (Billboard), was released independently in 2000.
Inspiration for her third album, Choreography, came from taking a break from the music business to study contemporary dance at Virginia Commonwealth University. Self-released in 2006 and co-produced with Hoffman's longterm collaborator John Morand, Choreography found it's audience in the 2010's, lead by the success of trip-hop/sad-pop single "Broken" on Pandora radio. It has gone on to become her most-loved and most-streamed album.
Interplanetary Traveler, recorded in 2007 and released in 2010, saw a departure from Lauren's usual sad-pop-and-dark-humor style. According to PopMatters, the album is "a good-natured trip worth taking" that "could be your (and your kids'?) favorite new Saturday morning record".
But Hoffman returned to the dark(er) side with her 2017 release, Family Ghost. Recorded with backing band The Secret Storm and co-produced again with John Morand, the album features "ghostly and even ominous moods" with "occasional forays into sensual, jazz-tinged landscapes" (House of Prog).
In 2019, Hoffman released a 6th album, Mercury Girls, described by Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield as hitting "a Laurel Canyon-flavored high" with a "stunner" of a title track.Several singles followed in 2020, with Choreographic, "a companion to Choreography", and a "Deluxe" edition of Megiddo joining Hoffman's catalog in 2021.
Lauren Hoffman lives in Los Angeles and has recently begun production on a new collection of compositions. Hoffman is a "200%" owner of her catalog, with all compositions and sound recordings available for licensing and sync.