Imani Ofuyi.

Imani Ofuyi recorded most of Static Forever in a one-bedroom in Crown Heights, with a Tascam four-track she has owned since 2018 and a U47 borrowed from her older brother. She tracked the demo for “Inside Voice” in a hallway because the kitchen had a refrigerator hum she didn’t want to fight. Three of those demos made the record. The four-track tape masters are the masters. RCA didn’t ask her to do it twice.

It is her sophomore album, after 2023’s Heat Lightning, a record she now describes as “a single really long apology to nobody in particular.” Static Forever is the opposite gesture. Twelve songs, no apologies, the band listed in the order they enter, the lyric sheet typeset in her own handwriting. There is a flute. There is a Wurlitzer with a busted vibrato. There is one drum machine. There is no “feature” credit on the cover, because she didn’t want anything between her name and the title.

I wanted a record that sounds like the first time you sing along to something in the kitchen. Imani Ofuyi

She comes from Houston by way of Berklee, where she spent four years studying voice and dropped out of two production classes for being “too clean.” The Quintet she tours with (Aja Grant on keys, Joel Ross on vibes, Cory Henry’s nephew on bass, Marcus Gilmore on drums) built the live arrangements over a winter at Sear Sound. The fall tour leaves room for the songs to lengthen. None of them are short.