Los Angeles-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Spencer Hoffman’s second album, Cherry Picker, came out on March 13th via Anxiety Blanket Records. Written as an ode to Hoffman’s long-time partner and a future they imagined together, “Cherry Picker” carries an emotional weight that deepened as the recording stretched over three years. Per Hoffman’s promotional materials, what began as a pretext for matrimony became, quietly, a swan song as Hoffman and his partner separated after thirteen years together while the album was still being made. To find out more, I sent him a few questions…

You recorded your first album, Apple Core, during the pandemic. Do you think of it as a “pandemic album,” or does it hold a broader appeal in your heart?

The social isolation, loss of a record deal, and the enormous amount of free time left to my own devices enabled me to write and record music purely to my own taste. It was like cooking comfort food for myself. The end result was a record that I feel totally represented me, my taste and my abilities at the time. The recording process was more emotional than technical. I would make decisions based on what I could stand to do, or what would be the most fun, rather than what would sound the best or give me more options later. I found that recording in that way made me like the end result more despite its rough edges. I have tried to take that lesson into all future projects. The record still means a lot to me and I think always will. 

That album was mixed by Melina Duterte (aka Jay Som). How did that come about?

Melina was a friend of a friend, Kaz Mirblouk, who made the introduction between us when I felt stuck on the rough mixes I had. Melina became an early champion of the record and really carved out time to be able to mix it. I feel really lucky whenever I have the chance to collaborate with her. She also helped out on some singles last year, Harm and Abbey WiFi.

Your new album is called Cherry Picker. How do you see it as a step forward?

I think the record is a huge sonic step into uncharted territory for both me and Sam Plecker, who produced the record. We spent countless hours experimenting with the songs. Sometimes we built up a track only to delete everything and start over. Some days were focused on ambient tape experimentation that would end up in a song yet to be written. Where Apple Core’s arrangements are pretty standard for the most part, Cherry Picker is maximalist, at least at times. We kind of treated it like a painting, putting layer upon layer until we felt like it was finished. I don’t think I’ll ever make another record like it, so maybe it’s a step to the side rather than forward.    

Your press materials mention that the album “began as a pretext for matrimony” but that you and your partner of thirteen years separated as you were recording the album. How does the emotional weight of that experience translate to your music?

I don’t know how other people will experience it, but for me the songs were hard to finish and it’s hard to talk about even now and feel like I am doing it justice. The record was being lived through as it was being made, so I have strong associations with each of the recordings. Usually my worst writing is when I am actively going through something because I have no perspective on it, the words won’t carry the emotional context of what I am experiencing because, at that time, all words do. It’s usually only later that I can recall what I felt and select words that evoke those feelings. For whatever reason, these songs were written in situ and still feel like they captured what it was like, even long after the fact.    

Are you still on good terms, if you don’t mind me asking?

We haven’t spoken in a long time.

Has your former partner heard the album?

She was there for much of its recording, but has not heard the final version. 

The title track from Cherry Picker includes imagery drawn from your great-great-grandfather, a New York visual artist working at the turn of the 20th century. What was his name, and how would you describe his art? 

His name was Fred J. Edgars. His art hung in my grandmother’s house when I was growing up, including large oil paintings of pastoral scenes and a dramatic ship’s sinking. He worked for a publishing house in Brooklyn called the McLoughlin Brothers for much of his career doing everything from children’s book illustrations to Valentine’s cards. He later did scenic design and worked freelance, at one time doing the cover of Radio Broadcast Magazine. I would sleep under this unfinished painting of his that hung over the bed on unstretched canvas, a boy picking cherries and dropping them down to a girl catching them in her dress, where another lady is collecting them in a hat. This became the start of the song “Cherry Picker” and a rendering of that scene by Niall Grant serves as the album cover.    

Do you have any plans to take Cherry Picker on the road?

Yes! I’m hoping to first plan a series of release shows in some of my favorite cities. 

What’s on the horizon for you? 

Getting this record out there to as many people as I can is all I can think about right now!