SJ Hoffman - The Long Now

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CD: € 18.00

Vinyl: € 25.00

Digital: € 12.1

An especially strong debut by a late-bloomer….with some strong links to the UK…(Micky Rowe, Joe Hamill..)

 

The fabulous Eva Longoria waited until she was 43 to bring her first child into the world. The inimitable Henry Miller waited until he was 43 to publish his first book. So, it’s never too late…

 

Steven Borgerhoff (b. 1975), one half of the Borgerhoff & Lamberigts publishing duo, waited until he was 43 to release his first album – so it took him quite a while to gain his momentum; thus the title of the album.

 

Despite the wait, it was never a matter of if for Borgerhoff, but always when. The album and his music were always there in the shadows, waiting to be brought out into the light. There was a little bit of a push needed to create it, which came from Shameboy’s Luuk Cox (Stromae, Tim Vanhamel, Girls in Hawaii), who had run into Borgerhoff on previous occasions. Cox selected 9 songs from the hundreds of demos that had just been gathering dust over the years and produced the album. And there you go: The Long Now was born, the first album by SJ Hoffman, an anagram of Steven Borgerhoff’s first and last names. The music is all SJ Hoffman himself, although he wrote the lyrics together with Joe Hamill, frontman of the British band Cattle & Cane. This album is both powerful and intimate, and perfect for fans of bands like The National, Elbow, and Thindersticks.

 

SJ Hoffman’s goal is as clear as it is ambitious: to move others with his music just as he has been moved a thousand times and more by other people’s music. He believes that music is emotion, rather than some intellectual pursuit; that it is more an expression of something that you cannot express any other way. He was inspired by, among others, Talk Talk (and the Spirit of Eden album) and Peter Gabriel (and the So album). Granted, these are quite famous examples, but that doesn’t make it any less appealing.

 

The Long Now was recorded between November 2016 and February 2018 in the ICP Studios in Brussels, together with a great team supporting SJ Hoffman, including Mickey Rowe (Noel Gallagher’s musical right-hand man, on piano and synths), Arnout Hellofs (Hooverphonic, on drums), Seb Leye (Delvis, Slow Pilot, on electric guitar), and Ilse Goovaerts (better known as Neeka, providing backing vocals). Steven Borgerhoff provided the vocals and acoustic guitar work himself.

 

 
1.
 
2.
Falling 04:53
 
3.
Darkness 04:18
 
4.
 
5.
Blow Away 03:18
 
6.
 
7.
No Excuse 03:18
 
8.
 
9.
Gold 04:30

 

PRESS: 

 

LUMINOUS DASH

WRITTEN IN MUSIC

MUSICZINE

ROOTSTIME

HUMO

ROCKPORTAAL

DE MORGEN

KEYS AND CHORDS

CULTUURPAKT

CONCERT MONKEY