“Objects in the mirror may be closer / than they appear // or so far,” sings Lara Hoffman on the title track and opener of eggcorn‘s Observer Effect, out now via Spirit House. “In the fun-house-morphing / of who we are / what we’ve seen / memories’ scar / I am dying to be altered through your observation!” Taking its title from the phenomenon where an observed system is disturbed by the very act of being observed, the record finds the Bay Area songwriter not only reflecting on the past, but examining with the ways in which such reflection might actively shape her experiences. The style has roots in Hoffman’s background as a musical therapist, and is as demanding as it is revealing, requiring she hold herself to account as much as anyone else. “Moving away from the synth pop sensibilities of debut Your Own True Love, the album adopts a pop-inflected brand of chamber folk which combines sincere compassion with unerring honesty,” as we wrote in a preview, “a sound able to probe deep into the heart of the matter and unafraid of getting dirty in the process.”
The title track kicks things off, with Hoffman “using the impatient frustration of a slow-healing injury to delve into unpalatable truths about herself and the desires therein,” as we continued in the preview, “baring vulnerabilities and reckoning with their implications without sacrificing a certain playfulness.” The song also introduces the newly rich eggcorn sound, the album seeing Hoffman record with a full band for the first time. Bandmates Ali Gummess (violin) and Karen Moran (viola) feature throughout, Peter Craft and Alex Doolittle added drums, while Brian Mello (lead guitar) and Ben Tudor (upright bass) also make cameos. “I’ve always felt very protective of my songwriting,” Hoffman says. “It feels very private and sacred and I’ve been scared to have other people influence the process but this has been rewarding both interpersonally and artistically.” A process which feels very much in keeping with the thematic concerns of the record.
Yet for all of its collaborative spirit, eggcorn is a personal project, and Observer Effect is an inherently personal record. ‘Solo Party’ is an examination of social isolation and the ways we can change in short spaces of time, ‘Phorest’ an intimate picture of romantic longing, while ‘do 2 u’ combines both moods into something more complicated, where the twin desires for company and peace sit side by side. ‘Hitler Was a Vegetarian’ “finds Hoffman examining her own imperfections with unerring candour,” we wrote in April, “as its title suggests, the song explores the ways in which individuals exist as systems of contradictions, with objectively cruel people still capable of tenderness and vice versa.” The tender ‘Sunday Morning Visages’ on the other hand is haunted by the absence of another person. “Sometimes the breeze is the brush of you moving / hallucinate your approach on the carpet,” Hoffman sings in the opening lines, the rest of the track essentially chasing that invisible body back through time. Recalling all the things that were, reimaging what might have been. Exploring the ways in which we preserve moments from the past, the ways we curate them in our heads, and ultimately how such experiences can come to govern our lives long after their physical existence has ended.
What if you knew you only had one day
would you do anything differently
squander the moment in search of the moment
foment my legs and splay them open wide
or twisted tight
Observer Effect is out now via Spirit House and available from the eggcorn Bandcamp page.
Cover diorama by Caroline Dewison, Cover design and photography by Ginger Fierstein