The Kessler Theater

David Garza

David Garza’s journey from Texas troubadour and ’90s cult cassette hero to Grammy-winning producer has been anything but ordinary. Through major label albums and a trove of indie releases, he has embodied the cabaret shaman, the punk provocateur, the poet, the painter – but always the storyteller.

Suzanna Choffel

As Suzanna Choffel sits outside a coffee shop to discuss her fourth album, a grackle flits underneath the table. The presence of Austin’s most ubiquitous bird barely registers until she mentions that avian creatures have become “kind of my spirit animal” and a theme of sorts in her life a point affirmed by the album’s title: Bird by Bird – out on September 27 (pre-save link) The title is from a song inspired by the legendary Anne Lamott guide to creative writing. In it, Lamott recounts a childhood memory of her brother panicking because he hadn’t even started a paper about birds that was due the next day. Their father calmed him, advising, “Just take it bird by bird.”
For Choffel, the idea of facing potentially overwhelming situations by breaking them into smaller parts resonated on many levels, from addressing anxiety to recording her album. Not only was this one created in sections, she explains, “It also felt like putting pieces of me into a collection that paints the picture of my life these past six or seven years.”
When she recorded her last album, Hello Goodbye, Choffel was pregnant with her first daughter. Now a mother of two, she’s viewing life from the perspective of someone dealing with the ups and downs of
parenthood, a long-term partnership and a post-pandemic world, not to mention her music career and
radio DJ job. She knew she needed to step away from her daily routine to get in the zone for this one. She also wanted to work with producer and longtime friend David Garza, who had just become a father and was staying close to home in L.A. She booked a flight; he called drummer Amy Wood and bassist Sebastian Steinberg, his co-producers with Fiona Apple on her Grammy-winning album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters.
On Bird By Bird, Choffel finds a noirish sweet spot and hits a new creative peak, segueing from tunes reflecting her love of ’80s pop to smoky jazz grooves on which she channels her inner Peggy Lee. “I believe she is truly the voice of Austin,” Garza gushed in a recent interview. “I hope that with this album, folks worldwide will get hip to her artistry.”
Choffel already had a reputation as a singer-songwriter and performer who glides among genres, eagerly exploring too many influences to fit neatly into any category. Bob Marley, Lauryn Hill and Mary J. Blige are significant inspirations, along with hooky, Madonna-ish dance-pop, Brazilian music, Stevie Wonder and her Mexican heritage. Performing professionally since she was 14, Choffel has won several national songwriting competitions and earned a 2009 Austin Music Award for Best Indie Band, prompting her to muse, “Maybe it actually means ‘independent of genre.’”
Bird by Bird highlights include “Summer in the City,” on which her breathy alto, fanned by Elias Haslinger’s slinky sax, builds from smoldering embers to a barn-burning flame, and “New York,” her “Fever”-pitched Big Apple love note. Evoking images of a chanteuse in elbow-length gloves working the crowd in a dimly lit jazz club (or on Broadway), it could become another classic ode to the city she
inhabited for three years after her season three stint on The Voice (about which then-Rolling Stone writer Jessica Hopper said, “[she’s] one of the only singers on anyone’s team … who had the sort of voice you’d want to listen to for an entire album”).
She notes that her writing was more declarative in the past, stating, “This is how it is.” Now, she’s asking,
“How Do I Make You Feel” and “What Do You Want from Me.” In the former, a quietly powerful song of
longing almost belied by its sweet, sensual melody, she wants to know, “How do I make you feel what I
want you to feel?”
“This album is so much about just wanting to connect,” she says. “It’s for people who yearn to be seen,
held, heard, touched.” But she also examines a particularly searing example of social injustice there’s simply no way to fix: the killing of Breonna Taylor, shot in her sleep by police who stormed the wrong apartment. “‘Fast Asleep (Breonna)’ is the most specific song I’ve ever written,” Choffel says. “It originally was a folk song, but Davíd encouraged me to explore more of a gospel/Nina Simone approach.” Moody and forceful, with percolating percussion and Adrian Quesada’s haunting guitar, it notes the irony that the future EMT, had she lived, might have responded to similar situations—and saved others’ lives. That pain is tempered by hints of hope in “Little By Little” and especially “Bird by Bird”—which floats on a reggae vibe and tropicalia lilt. Choffel wrote it for her stepdaughter, who was struggling with depression and anxiety at the time. “Bird by bird and stone by stone,” she sings, “we can piece this world together / you don’t have to be alone.”
After cutting essential tracks in L.A., Choffel and Garza moved to the famed Sonic Ranch in West
Texas—where she’d long dreamed of working, and he could perform his annual music festival gig nearby.
Guest contributions (including violin by Warren Hood and Carrie Rodriguez) were recorded at Austin’s
Cedar Creek Studio.
As she’s done in every stage of her career, Choffel continues to evolve. With Bird By Bird, she’s stretching her wings — and soaring to fascinating new heights.