During this time, Kaufman was playing in bands such as Pooja and Follow The Lieder, as well as making recordings with long-time partner (and now wife) Annie Nero.

[1] This brought him a steady income while allowing flexibility for the growing amount of touring, production and arranging work that he was doing for artists such as Dawn Landes, Josh Ritter and The National.

As well as assisting with the recording of Boxer, in March 2012 Kaufman was invited by the band to act as musical director for a one-off ensemble performance with Grateful Dead founder Bob Weir and a host of big names from the US indie scene (including Walt Martin of The Walkmen and Thomas Bartlett under the title "The Bridge Session".

[6] In August of that year, Kaufman was invited to be part of a tribute concert led by Weir entitled “Move Me Brightly: Celebrating Jerry Garcia's 70th Birthday”.

[7] The performance took place at TRI Studios in San Rafael, California and was filmed for release as a music documentary entitled Move Me Brightly.

[10] Released in May 2016, the 59-track compilation was recorded over four years and featured a host of big names reinterpreting the Grateful Dead songbook, including Wilco, The War on Drugs, The National, Bonnie “Prince” Billy (Will Oldham), Jenny Lewis, Lucinda Williams, Mumford & Sons, Perfume Genius, Lisa Hannigan, The Flaming Lips and Bill Callahan.

While working in a record store in the early 2000s, Kaufman encountered the music of the Twin Cities rock band, Lifter Puller.

There, they worked together on music for a production of Scott Z. Burns’ play The Library before Finn lined up Kaufman to produce two solo studio albums, Faith in the Future (2015) and We All Want the Same Things (2017).

"[20] To mark the album's release, Kaufman appeared with Finn on Late Night with Seth Meyers for a rendition of lead single ‘Something To Hope For’.

[22] As of 2019[update], Kaufman was part of a three-piece band, Bonny Light Horseman, consisting of himself, Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats and singer/songwriter Anaïs Mitchell.

[citation needed] On March 6, 2020, it was announced that Kaufman would be joining Paul Banks and Matt Barrick to form a new band, Muzz.