Hailing from Brooklyn, New York, Sophie Auster is an American singer/songwriter and actress known for her resonant and rich pop songs that concern introspection, love, and life. Her sound evolved from the soft, lounge-like vocal pop on records such as her 2005 eponymous debut and 2012's Red Weather to the more amalgamated sounds on 2019's Next Time, which featured animated and upbeat alt-pop as well as slow, haunting folk. Auster became interested in music at the early age of eight when she learned to develop her voice with classical vocal training alongside standard music lessons. The next year, she made her acting debut after being cast in the 1997 romantic drama Washington Square. She made several other appearances in movies before her teens, when she took up acting studies at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in Manhattan while also performing jazz songs in venues and clubs around the city. In 2005, she put out her eponymous debut LP, which was composed of soft folk-pop and chanson-inspired lyrics. The album was recorded with Joshua Camp and Michael Hearst of the art rock outfit One Ring Zero. Originally intended to be an after-studies pastime, Auster was encouraged to release the recording officially after a family friend heard it; it was eventually picked up by the French indie label Naïve Records. She spent the next few years focusing on acting as well as musical pursuits and appeared in American dramas such as 2007's The Inner Life of Martin Frost and 2011's Stealing Summers. In 2007, she began writing material with British musician and producer Barry Reynolds (Marianne Faithfull, Rufus Wainwright), and after graduating from college in 2010 she began compiling her material for her first self-produced EP. The effort, Red Weather, was released in late 2012 on Lost Colony Music. She spent the next two years writing music for her next full-length, Dogs & Men, which was released via Out Loud Music in mid-2015. The LP garnered widespread acclaim and Auster was awarded the grand prize at the John Lennon Songwriting Contest for the album's track "Little Bird." Later that year she began work on her third album. The writing process took two years with producer Tore Johansson (David Kitt, the Cardigans) while she also focused on other endeavors. The record, Next Time, was released on BMG in early 2019. ~ Rob Wacey