Healing Potpourri, the vibrant indie pop project of songwriter Simi Sohota, will release their new album, Paradise on August 5th via Run For Cover Records. The upcoming album finds the Oakland-based musician unpacking two tumultuous years and pushing the band’s sound in exciting new directions. The celebrate the announcement, Healing Potpourri have also shared “Wind“, the first single from the album. Listen to it now below.
Co-produced by Sean O’Hagan of Stereolab and The High Llamas, along with engineer Jason Kick, the record incorporates warm electronics and colorful psychedelia into Healing Potpourri’s appealing chamber pop. The new single’s swirling keys and sunny horns are a perfect teaser of what’s to come.
Paradise is available for pre-order now HERE.
Where Healing Potpourri’s previous album, Blanket of Calm, was made by a large cast of Bay Area musicians, Paradise was created primarily by the more compact team of Sohota, O’Hagan, and Kick. But the result is actually an even more sprawling sound that seamlessly melds electronic instrumentation and colorful psych washes with Sohota’s knack for rhapsodic songwriting and gorgeous melodies.
“There are more synths, it’s more experimental,” he explains. “Part of that was just trying to make a lush, full band sound with just me, Jason, Sean, and a computer, but the other part of it was just the swirling dread and fear and paranoia of the time.”
Throughout the record Sohota’s lyrics wrestle with pandemic-era dread and social tumult, looking directly into the deluge of frustration and despair, but also refusing to be completely defeated by it. His words stand in stark contrast with the effervescent instrumentation, adding a new dimension to Healing Potpourri. “The lyrics aren’t about everything being fine,” he says. “A lot of the record is about how bad things are and how I’m angry about it–but I realized that can be Healing Potpourri too.”
Upcoming Shows:
06/11 San Francisco, CA @ The Great Northern
06/13 Big Sur, CA @ Henry miller Memorial Library *
06/14 Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent Theater *
06/15 Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent Theater *
06/17 Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy and Harriet’s *
06/19 Phoenix, AZ @ Rebel Lounge
06/20 Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress *
06/21 Flagstaff, AZ @ The Green Room *
06/22 Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf *
06/23 Colorado Springs, CO @ The Black Sheep *
06/24 Salt Lake City, UT @ The Grand At The Complex *
06/25 Las Vegas, NV @ 24 Oxford *
* w/ Turnover, Temple of Angels