The Soft Hills

The indie Americana outfit the Soft Hills, based in Seattle, Washington, took shape in late 2007 when drummer Caleb Heinrich teamed up with songwriter/guitarist Garret Hobba to develop his understated compositions. Bassist/guitarist Drew Dresman entered the lineup that December, allowing the trio to start performing shows in the local scene. Multi-instrumentalists Brittan Drake and Brett Massa came aboard the following year, layering keyboard textures and guitar parts onto Hobba’s melancholic indie songs. During this period the band tracked its debut EP, Painted World, inside a nearby elementary school and made liberal use of the children’s toy instruments scattered around the space. Their first full-length, Noruz, appeared in 2010. Shortly thereafter Caleb Heinrich stepped aside; drummer/Moog player Randall Skrasek, also of the Seattle psych rock band Hypatia Lake, took his spot. Drew Dresman departed in July 2010 to attend graduate school, shrinking the Soft Hills to a four-piece and slightly streamlining their sound. With a stable roster now in place, the musicians devoted themselves to refining their approach, arriving at a soft psych strain of indie rock that recalled the sad slowcore of Red House Painters and shared common ground with contemporaries such as Grizzly Bear or Fleet Foxes. The group toured the U.S. multiple times during these years. Late in 2011 they began recording their second album, The Bird Is Coming Down to Earth, which surfaced in early 2012 and led to plans for a European tour the following summer. Chromatisms emerged in early 2013, followed exactly one year later by Departure. In 2016 the band released Go Under, its fifth studio long player.