Amber Coffman - City of No Reply

The Guardian 80

(Sony)

Amber Coffman probably didn’t want her debut solo album to be picked over for titbits of scurrilous gossip, but that seems unavoidable now. Her split in 2012 from longtime boyfriend – and one-time Dirty Projectors bandmate – Dave Longstreth finally became fractious after this year’s self-titled Dirty Projectors album, which saw him unleash some fairly vicious barbs. It left people on tenterhooks as to what Coffman’s musical response might be, but – the odd pointed lyric aside – that response is a sunny, R&B-influenced album abundant with fluttering melodies, and concerned less with settling scores than learning to exist alone (“There’s a voice inside of me, and it’s time to listen,” is how All to Myself kicks things off). To add Fleetwood Mac-esque drama, City of No Reply was actually produced by Longstreth during a period of truce, and the influence of Coffman’s former band is detectable, adding offbeat appeal to balance out her more accessible tendencies. The result is intriguing – an album about going it alone, that hasn’t entirely shaken its past.