Amber Coffman is a singer and musician based in Los Angeles, California. A former member of Sleeping People, Coffman is best known as a former guitarist and vocalist for the indie rock band Dirty Projectors. Coffman’s solo debut, City of No Reply, is out June 2 via Columbia Records. “I’ve wanted to make a solo album for my entire life,” says Coffman, 32. “But the band was pretty demanding, time-wise, and I was still figuring out what I wanted to do musically.”
Coffman produced and wrote City of No Reply alongside Dirty Projectors’ Dave Longstreth, who recorded it in his Los Angeles studio in 2015. Coffman is thought to have left Dirty Projectors after her public breakup with Longstreth. Both musicians have used music as the way to voice their takes on the breakup leading people to ask Coffman if this new album is her “break up album”.
In an interview with Pitchfork, Coffman said of the album:
It’s more of an album about learning to live with yourself, which maybe is part of a breakup but it’s also just part of life. It’s about a lot: depression, self-doubt. “City of No Reply” is about “ghosting,” that phenomenon that a lot of us are experiencing these days. But it’s also not really about one city or one thing: It’s about a state of mind.
Pitchfork also noted the new album was created alongside her former music and romantic partner and in the interview, Coffman discussed the effect the collaboration had on the new album:
There were times when I would wonder if I was being too earnest. It was certainly a little scary. I would just listen to a part or something and think, Can I do this? Is this OK? I didn’t feel uncomfortable that Dave was in the room, necessarily, because a couple of my songs about him were pretty positive and amicable, and so much time had already gone by that I just switched it off in my mind. We were there and we were making it, so I just went with it.
Now Coffman is releasing the third song from the upcoming solo record and the song follows the previously-released “All to Myself” and “No Coffee.” Listen to Coffman’s “Nobody Knows” below. In addition to the songs, she’s shared the playful music video for “No Coffee.”