It was two years ago that Matthew A.C. Cohen chronicled the experience of his wife’s pregnancy and his son’s birth with his album Junior. Now, it’s time for an update. 

His latest solo project, Silhouettes of Life, is scheduled for release on December 27 and offers a glimpse of what life has been like over the last few years. 

“Being married, having a kid, raising him and navigating careers,” Cohen says. “Hearing what’s going on in your friend’s life, the tragedies and hopeful things that happen to them. This album is describing all of that musically, all of those events, all of those emotions and feelings that you get from life.”

The latest project is more than a continuation of Junior; it’s also something of a departure musically. Junior was written not just to describe the experience of having a child, but so Cohen could play the music for his son as he napped or went to bed. As such, most of the songs featured docile, calming sounds. 

But Silhouettes incorporates all aspects of Cohen’s musical career, which includes a lot of work in film, television and video games, as well as a heavy background in jazz. He’s meshed those two worlds together and incorporated a lot of electronic and techno sounds mixed with jazz harmonies and instrumentation. 

“The two albums are very, very different but this one really represents who I am musically because of all the different things I’ve been able to do over the course of my career,” Cohen says. “Falling in love with electronic music and doing things in the box with film and television and getting to combine that with my jazz background has felt kind of uniquely me.”

Cohen’s music career began at age 13 as a guitar player in various rock bands with his friends, playing genres ranging from ska to indie/alternative. He began writing music for his sister, a classically trained opera singer, and the two went on to record several songs together. 

He fell in love with jazz in high school and later earned a degree in composition from Hofstra University, where he also studied improvisation and classical saxophone. He still writes jazz combo charts, big band charts and arrangements for large and small jazz ensembles, but has dedicated most of his career to scoring film, television and video games, working with many high-profile composers in the process. 

Cohen has worked with artists like Trevor Morris, who’s scored shows like The Tudors, The Borgias and Vikings and has been nominated for Emmy Awards. He offered Cohen some of his first network cable television opportunities, and the pair worked together on Vikings. 

Cohen worked on the 2015 film The Funhouse Massacre with Chad Rehmann, who gave him his first real feature film writing opportunity. He also worked on several documentaries with Simon Taufique, who produced the 2016 film Imperium. Their projects include the 2020 HBO Sports documentary The Weight of Gold that explored mental health challenges Olympic athletes face; it was executive-produced by Michael Phelps and earned a 2021 Sports Emmy nomination. Cohen and Taufique also worked together on the 2021 documentary Invisible that explored gay women songwriters navigating a male dominated country music scene in Nashville. That film was named Best Documentary at the Frameline San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival and Best Documentary Feature at NewFest: New York’s LGBT Film Festival. 

A native of New York, Cohen resides there with his wife and two-year-old son. He’s also lived in Chicago and Los Angeles. 

For more information, visit www.matthewaccohen.com and follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Silhouettes of Life is available for preorder on iTunes.