MUSIC

McGonigel's Mucky Duck presents Suzanna Choffel.

Austin native Suzanna Choffel gave the songs on her new album, STEADY EYE SHAKY BOW, time to mature and build character, like fine wine, before she stepped into the studio to record. The result is 10 elegant tracks that flow from the jazz-oriented style of her 2006 debut, SHUDDERS AND RINGS, into a form she likes to call indie-soul-pop.

It’s as fitting a term as any to describe the blue-eyed charmer’s dusky vocal delivery. To paint an even more specific picture, she’ll go with, “Smoky-voiced female lead singing pop songs with a little bit of an urban feel.”

Not that jazz has taken a back seat. It’s there in her scat-like phrasing, and in such instrumentation as sax and vibraphone. Take “Raincloud,” the first single. It’s poppy, but with New Orleans second-line horns by Big Sam’s Funky Nation. The video for that song, coincidentally, has over 500,000 YouTube views causing the Austin American-Statesman to declare Choffel the city’s first YouTube superstar. She’s also scored wins in the John Lennon Songwriting, International Songwriting and FameCast competitions.

Influenced by women as diverse as Erykah Badu and Edie Brickell (whose New Bohemians bandmate, Brad Houser, plays bass and sax in Suzanna’s band), with echoes of Feist and even a little Dusty (check “So the Story Goes”), she writes upbeat melodies, but wraps them around fearless examinations of the emotional complexities inherent in relationships. Some of these melodies carry delightful reminders of what’s come before: a little girl-group reference here, a little Stax or Motown flavoring there. Petula Clark and Lulu would be at home next to Suzanna. But there’s an earthiness, too; a sprinkle of what Choffel calls “a dark grit.” Blues-colored, to be exact.