The Soft Hills is the music project of Los Angeles–based songwriter, producer, and multidisciplinary artist Garrett Hobba. Formed in Seattle in 2007, the project has taken many shapes over the years, with a revolving cast of musicians and longtime friends contributing to Hobba’s songs and recordings. Some of those relationships stretch back to bands Hobba played in before The Soft Hills and have resurfaced at different points throughout the project’s history. The current core lineup consists of Hobba alongside drummer Garrit Tillman and bassist Arthur De Palla.
The Soft Hills began taking shape in late 2007 when drummer Caleb Heinrich joined Hobba in Seattle. Bassist Drew Dresman followed soon afterward, and multi-instrumentalists Brittan Drake and Brett Massa joined the group the following year. The early lineup recorded the Painted World EP in a local elementary school, incorporating some of the children’s instruments found there into the sessions. Hobba’s longtime friend Jon Peloso, with whom he had played in a band years earlier in California, also contributed to the EP, beginning a musical connection to The Soft Hills that would continue intermittently for years. The project’s first full-length album, Noruz, followed in 2010.
From 2009 through 2014, The Soft Hills developed into an active live band in Seattle, playing frequently around the city and building a vibrant local audience. The group also completed several U.S. tours and traveled to Europe multiple times during this period. Those years marked the project’s emergence beyond the Pacific Northwest and produced a succession of records that broadened its sound from understated folk toward increasingly psychedelic and atmospheric territory.
Hamburg-based Tapete Records released The Bird Is Coming Down to Earth in 2012, followed by Chromatisms in 2013 and Departure in 2014. Peloso returned to contribute to Departure, while another longtime California friend and former bandmate, Anthony Shadduck, contributed bass guitar to the album. Departure was mixed in London by Guy Massey, beginning a longstanding working relationship: Massey would subsequently mix Go Under, Viva Chi Vede, and Mysterium.
Around 2014, Hobba’s creative attention began shifting away from music. Although two Soft Hills albums appeared during the following couple of years, music was no longer his primary focus. Cle Elum drew largely from an earlier collection of demos recorded in Seattle, while Go Under was made with important contributions from Brandon and Shane Graham. Brandon played guitar and some bass, Shane played drums throughout the album, and Shadduck contributed bass guitar to nearly all of the songs.
During this same period, Hobba became increasingly absorbed in visual art. He studied at Pratt Institute in New York, working extensively in drawing, painting, and printmaking and allowing those disciplines to occupy a place that music had previously held. Rather than ending The Soft Hills, the period marked a broader transformation in Hobba’s creative life and gradually opened the project toward other forms of expression.
In the spring of 2017, Hobba bought a one-way ticket to Europe with plans to spend a year working on organic farms and participating in artist residencies. Soon after arriving, however, a series of circumstances led him to a farm outside Utrecht in the Netherlands, where he took part in a three-night ayahuasca ceremony. At the time, he had largely turned away from music and was struggling with a profound loss of purpose. The experience changed his plans completely. He canceled the rest of his stay in Europe, moved to Portland, Oregon, bought an acoustic guitar, and began writing songs almost immediately. After several years in which visual art had occupied the center of his creative life, music had suddenly returned with a renewed sense of purpose.
Six months later, Hobba moved to Los Angeles, where he reconnected musically with longtime friends Jon Peloso and Anthony Shadduck. Peloso and Shadduck brought drummer Garrit Tillman into the project, and the musicians began working together at a studio in Thousand Oaks. Those sessions eventually became Viva Chi Vede, released in 2022. Peloso made substantial contributions to the recordings, Shadduck performed bass throughout the album, and Tillman established a musical relationship with Hobba that would continue into Mysterium. The record grew directly from the transformation that had begun in the Netherlands, combining renewed songwriting with a more exploratory approach to sound, psychedelic experience, spiritual inquiry, and studio experimentation.
That evolution continues with Mysterium, the eighth full-length album by The Soft Hills. The current core of Hobba, Tillman, and bassist Arthur De Palla is joined by a wider group of collaborators, including Karl Blau, Brandon Graham, Mark Benton, George Madrid, Jesse McGinty, and Dustin Silva. The album was mixed and mastered in London by Guy Massey.
Written and recorded across an extended period of travel throughout the United States, Mysterium carries a strong sense of place, shaped by changing landscapes, memory, and lived experience. The songs began taking shape as Hobba moved between Pittsburgh, Knoxville, Borrego Springs, the Pacific Northwest, New England, and eventually Los Angeles, often working with a portable recording setup in temporary rooms and borrowed spaces. Musically, the album moves between intimate songwriting, psychedelic rock, Americana, sound collage, dreamlike atmospheres, and heavier passages of distorted guitar, while its songs explore childhood, family, spiritual experience, nightmare, transformation, and the search for refuge.
In recent years, Hobba’s visual work has become increasingly intertwined with The Soft Hills. He creates surreal short films using stop-motion, handmade objects, puppets, antique dolls, and constructed environments, bringing his work in music, visual art, and experimental filmmaking into closer contact. Across nearly two decades, The Soft Hills has remained less a fixed band than an evolving collaborative project—held together by Hobba’s songwriting and by a network of musicians, friendships, places, and experiences that continue to shape its music.
Contact: [email protected]
The Soft Hills began taking shape in late 2007 when drummer Caleb Heinrich joined Hobba in Seattle. Bassist Drew Dresman followed soon afterward, and multi-instrumentalists Brittan Drake and Brett Massa joined the group the following year. The early lineup recorded the Painted World EP in a local elementary school, incorporating some of the children’s instruments found there into the sessions. Hobba’s longtime friend Jon Peloso, with whom he had played in a band years earlier in California, also contributed to the EP, beginning a musical connection to The Soft Hills that would continue intermittently for years. The project’s first full-length album, Noruz, followed in 2010.
From 2009 through 2014, The Soft Hills developed into an active live band in Seattle, playing frequently around the city and building a vibrant local audience. The group also completed several U.S. tours and traveled to Europe multiple times during this period. Those years marked the project’s emergence beyond the Pacific Northwest and produced a succession of records that broadened its sound from understated folk toward increasingly psychedelic and atmospheric territory.
Hamburg-based Tapete Records released The Bird Is Coming Down to Earth in 2012, followed by Chromatisms in 2013 and Departure in 2014. Peloso returned to contribute to Departure, while another longtime California friend and former bandmate, Anthony Shadduck, contributed bass guitar to the album. Departure was mixed in London by Guy Massey, beginning a longstanding working relationship: Massey would subsequently mix Go Under, Viva Chi Vede, and Mysterium.
Around 2014, Hobba’s creative attention began shifting away from music. Although two Soft Hills albums appeared during the following couple of years, music was no longer his primary focus. Cle Elum drew largely from an earlier collection of demos recorded in Seattle, while Go Under was made with important contributions from Brandon and Shane Graham. Brandon played guitar and some bass, Shane played drums throughout the album, and Shadduck contributed bass guitar to nearly all of the songs.
During this same period, Hobba became increasingly absorbed in visual art. He studied at Pratt Institute in New York, working extensively in drawing, painting, and printmaking and allowing those disciplines to occupy a place that music had previously held. Rather than ending The Soft Hills, the period marked a broader transformation in Hobba’s creative life and gradually opened the project toward other forms of expression.
In the spring of 2017, Hobba bought a one-way ticket to Europe with plans to spend a year working on organic farms and participating in artist residencies. Soon after arriving, however, a series of circumstances led him to a farm outside Utrecht in the Netherlands, where he took part in a three-night ayahuasca ceremony. At the time, he had largely turned away from music and was struggling with a profound loss of purpose. The experience changed his plans completely. He canceled the rest of his stay in Europe, moved to Portland, Oregon, bought an acoustic guitar, and began writing songs almost immediately. After several years in which visual art had occupied the center of his creative life, music had suddenly returned with a renewed sense of purpose.
Six months later, Hobba moved to Los Angeles, where he reconnected musically with longtime friends Jon Peloso and Anthony Shadduck. Peloso and Shadduck brought drummer Garrit Tillman into the project, and the musicians began working together at a studio in Thousand Oaks. Those sessions eventually became Viva Chi Vede, released in 2022. Peloso made substantial contributions to the recordings, Shadduck performed bass throughout the album, and Tillman established a musical relationship with Hobba that would continue into Mysterium. The record grew directly from the transformation that had begun in the Netherlands, combining renewed songwriting with a more exploratory approach to sound, psychedelic experience, spiritual inquiry, and studio experimentation.
That evolution continues with Mysterium, the eighth full-length album by The Soft Hills. The current core of Hobba, Tillman, and bassist Arthur De Palla is joined by a wider group of collaborators, including Karl Blau, Brandon Graham, Mark Benton, George Madrid, Jesse McGinty, and Dustin Silva. The album was mixed and mastered in London by Guy Massey.
Written and recorded across an extended period of travel throughout the United States, Mysterium carries a strong sense of place, shaped by changing landscapes, memory, and lived experience. The songs began taking shape as Hobba moved between Pittsburgh, Knoxville, Borrego Springs, the Pacific Northwest, New England, and eventually Los Angeles, often working with a portable recording setup in temporary rooms and borrowed spaces. Musically, the album moves between intimate songwriting, psychedelic rock, Americana, sound collage, dreamlike atmospheres, and heavier passages of distorted guitar, while its songs explore childhood, family, spiritual experience, nightmare, transformation, and the search for refuge.
In recent years, Hobba’s visual work has become increasingly intertwined with The Soft Hills. He creates surreal short films using stop-motion, handmade objects, puppets, antique dolls, and constructed environments, bringing his work in music, visual art, and experimental filmmaking into closer contact. Across nearly two decades, The Soft Hills has remained less a fixed band than an evolving collaborative project—held together by Hobba’s songwriting and by a network of musicians, friendships, places, and experiences that continue to shape its music.
Contact: [email protected]
