EP Premiere: Soft Powder – Shangri-La

Sungenre
Soft Powder is the latest project from Melbourne musician Andy Szetho (Storm the Sky). Today we’re pleased to present the premiere of his debut EP Shangri-La.

“I took the name Shangri-La from James Hilton’s Lost Horizon. In the book, Shangri-La is described as a mystical, hidden paradise of eternal youth. It’s my dad’s favourite story and has become one of mine.

I wrote these songs over the course of the last year with no intention of ever releasing them, but it got to a point where not releasing them stressed me out and gave me writer’s block. I thought that maybe if I released these songs, I’d be able to let go of them, hopefully reigniting my creative spark.

As I wrote and recorded all of the songs myself, it was partly a self-imposed challenge to step outside of my comfort zone. Lyrically, the songs are about identity and belonging, and the ongoing influence that growing up Asian in Australia has had on me. There’s also a touch of heartbreak in there for good measure! In hindsight it makes me seem like a pretty grim person, but there’s definitely a tongue-in-cheek undercurrent present in the lyrics, not that you can distinguish any of them anyway amongst all the reverb… sorry.

The overall theme of the EP is escapism, and the idea of Shangri-La symbolises my ideal, imagined paradise. There’s something I find romantic about the idea of Shangri-La, and I guess it resonates with me on a sentimental level as well.”