Paradise Breakdown with Healing Potpourri

Healing Potpourri’s Simi Sohota joins us to give a breakdown of each song on his vibrant new record Paradise out today on Run For Cover. Sohota worked alongside veteran producer Sean O’Hagan of The High Llamas and Stereolab to craft a sprawling and meditative breed of lush chamber pop.

“Truly Good”

This was one of the first voice memo ideas on my phone that turned into a song on the album. I have a memo of just hitting that Fmaj9 chord and singing that melody line I knew would be horns. The lyrics are all about being in love with my girlfriend Ava. The middle section was written by my co-producer Sean O’Hagan (of High Llamas and Stereolab) and is one of the most beautiful moments on the album. It was really fun to go super Beach Boys for the ending and come up with all the vocal layers and cross melody.

Wind”

This song went through so many iterations! The original version was produced by my friend Muzzy (Almond Joy, Froogy’s Groovies) on his 4 track. Then we started playing it as more of a low-key Floydian tune but when I told Sean I wanted this one to be a single he said he “didn’t hear a single.” So he helped give it that Doobie Brothers shine. I love the swirling synths and ear candy in this one. The outro really reminds me of late era The Cure, it just makes me happy, so blissed out. Wind is a metaphor for consequences of your actions, and it's sort of a running theme throughout the album.

”Free”

The lyrics are sort of inspired by that Beach Boys song “Airplane” off of the Beach Boys Love You (1977). We did some BBoys style drum fills but helped deepen it with all the synths and drum machines. The bridge with acoustic 12-string plucking is probably my favorite part, very sunshine pop. My friend and old bandmate Jack saved my ass by making me change the original lyric “snacks in the glove” to “hand in glove,” thankfully! This is another love song for Ava.

”What Do I Do Now?”

This song is about addiction and mental health issues. It’s about a specific childhood friend that overdosed on his anti-depressants, I won’t say who. But I was also thinking of a few other friends/lovers that I’ve lost due to suicide/drug abuse. My heart breaks every time I think about these people in my life and how much more love they had to give. I wanted to contrast the deep sadness of the song with really happy production. Sometimes I feel like that makes it hit harder. My friend Raphey who plays trumpet and trombone on the album told me he thought it was a break-up song, which is funny, I love that this song can have a different meaning to every listener.

”Sticky”

We used the string section from the song “Last Place” to create an intro to this weirdo instrumental. Jason Kick (who co-produced the album with Sean) pitched them down so they’d flow into the chords we had. And we added some sort of 70s jazz electric piano and rain stick sounds to make it really soft, pretty and psychedelic. Then when the chords hit it sort of has this cartoon Magical Mystery Tour vibe in my head. I was using remix effects to trip it out. I imagine trudging through mud with boots and the mud is just sticking like gum and making it hard to walk.

”Paradise”

The title track here was written in response to the murder of George Floyd. I wanted to push myself to write something meaningful about what was happening in America during the time we were making this album. It’s a sad song that refers to a type of aspirational paradise if we could all just get our shit together. The strings on this one mostly came from Sean, although Jason Kick (my other producer) and I contributed a little. There’s sort of a Kate Bush “Cloudbusting” moment towards the end of the song that gives it that sort of “call to action” vibe. A lot of love and humility went into this track and it sorta gives me chills when I really listen to it.

”Terry”

This is an homage to Terry Riley. When I was a DJ at KDVS, my college radio station, I found “A Rainbow in Curved Air” in the stacks and it changed my life. It was the most psychedelic thing I’d ever heard, and I used to play it on my radio show all the time. I tried to make it as much of an homage without it being too derivative, that’s why we have that baggy beat going and added some groovy bass licks. The outro was almost entirely Sean, which is why he has co-writing credit for this song.

”Last Place”

Those strings from Sticky come back here. This is more of a straight ahead bossa feel with the nylon string guitar and really romantic strings. The lyrics are about disappointment with humanity in the face of the global crises we faced during the pandemic and racial reckoning of 2020. I spent a lot of time mixing the ba da da harmonies and whisper tracks for the outro, I think it turned out perfect, it shoots off like a sexy rocket in slow-motion.

”Fireworks”

It started off as an exercise in writing a song without any “weird chords” although an Fmaj9 slipped into the chorus. I was listening to a lot of Tim Presley’s White Fence and Syd Barrett at the time and was inspired by their chord changes. It’s about having a psychedelic experience with my new love Ava at our friend Griffin’s house on the fourth of july. I don’t write too many upbeat songs but this one just couldn’t be any other way. Sean tried as hard as he could to not make this song sound too Stereolabby, but it didn’t work! Hahah.

”Here”

I think we were re-watching the X Files and I was reading about aliens and contemplating the universe and where Earth fits into the big puzzle. Sean really knocked the horns outta the park with this one. I think we turned some crazy arpeggiated synths into midi, then re-did them with harp sounds to get that twinkle that contrasts with the deep horns. I really love Sean’s do da’s at the end, he recorded it as an idea for me to re-do with my voice but I liked it so much we kept it and repeated it a bunch of times.

”Something New”

I started writing this chord progression many many years ago. I would occasionally try to get my band to play it at practice but it was too complicated and annoying to learn so it just sat unfinished. I was going to keep it as an instrumental but Jason really pushed me to write some lyrics for it. He even wrote some scratch lyrics to help with a vocal melody but I ended up re-writing them about how much I hate my day job and how I often fantasize and daydream about a different life.