Soft Palms - Soft Palms (YELLOW VINYL) |

The self-titled debut by Soft Palms is the brainchild of Julia Kugel (The Coathangers, White Woods) and husband/musician/recording engineer Scott Montoya. The album is a feast of rich sounds and simple, comforting melodies threading together scrappy dream pop and ethereal torch songs into a sublime journey towards brighter horizons. Kugel and Montoya’s positivity in Soft Palms serves as the creative arm of their ongoing behind-the-scenes work in the Long Beach music community, such as planning Happy Sundays free music festival, running the arts non-profit Studios for Schools, and organizing Long Beach POP local events calendar.

Bio:

“My goal was to create something that sounded like a mental hug, a sonic embrace,” says Julia Kugel (The Coathangers/White Woods) about the self-titled debut album by Long Beach duo Soft Palms. “Everything can feel so wild and out of control, we really wanted to create something you could sink into and use to calm those emotions.” To achieve this goal, Kugel and her husband and partner Scott Montoya threaded together sock hop rock n’ roll, scrappy dream pop, and ethereal torch songs into a sublime journey towards brighter horizons. Though the album’s eight songs were written in fits and starts over the course of nearly a decade, Soft Palms ultimately came together over a two-year period as an extension of Kugel and Montoya’s broader musical ventures. Together they book the Happy Sundays music festival, run the non-profit Studios for Schools, and organize the events calendar Long Beach POP—all in an effort to celebrate, promote, and produce art and music through community and positivity. In the moments when the wife-and-husband team aren’t elevating and empowering other artists, they’ve channeled their passion into Soft Palms.

Album opener “Baddy” sets the tone for the album by laying down a simple guitar line with a g