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On his debut solo album, Lately, Paul Schalda channels the human experience with a transparent, poetic purity. With instinctive melodies and a singularly visceral voice, Schalda’s folk-flecked indie soul is at once vulnerable, personal, and hugely relatable.

“The goal was to mix the energy of my East Coast family with my new Texas family,” said Schalda, who moved from his native Staten Island to Dallas eight years ago. “It’s an ode to the human experience … of leaving all my roots behind and navigating new terrain.” 

The songs on this album are subconsciously steeped in his relocation, separation, and boundless love for his kids. Indeed, Lately is a record permeated with love in all its incarnations: romantic, familial, parental, brotherly, and musical.  Recorded to tape at Niles City Sound in Fort Worth Texas, Lately carries forward that rare spirit, channeling it into a set of compositions that are staggeringly gorgeous and uncommonly real. 

Co-produced by Skylark Soul Co co-founder Skin Wade and Houston guitarist/musical director Robert Ellis, the Lately band combined New York and Texas talents including Black Pumas guitarist Adrian Quesada, drummer Rich Terrana and Preet Patel (from NY band the Frightnrs), Brooklyn’s Victor Axelrod (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings) on keys, and returning Dallas luminaries Kevin and Becki Howard. 

Album opener “Alarmist” was the first song Schalda wrote for what would become Lately and sets the tone for the record: an ode to the human experience with a vastness and sonic depth apt to its subdued lyrical angst. Lead single “Anything For Your Love” is subtly exotic, slightly sepia-toned yacht rock. The one Lately track produced by Quesada, it’s a statement of complete devotion with universally relatable lyrics and earworm melodies.

 “Can You See Yourself?” is a we’ve-all-been-there sing-along mantra of hope that a crush feels the same way about you. Lately’s title track is also its spiritual anchor, Schalda’s voice entrancingly dancing with Becki Howard’s – a magic they revisit on “About the Robots.”

 It’s entirely in character that Schalda’s favorite song on the album is closer “Rollercoaster,” a memory of a trip to Santa Monica with his young daughters, who also sing on the track alongside their dad and grandpa.

 “We hung out on the boardwalk for three days, and did nothing but lounge at the beach, go on rides, eat junk food and stay up late,” Schalda recalled, palpably glowing at the memory. “I came home and was inspired to write that song … and I want them to sing on songs with me.”

Schalda is best known for his gorgeous, rustic Americana collaborations with producer Thomas Brenneck under the monikor  Paul & the Tall Trees, Schalda was also a longtime member of Charles Bradley’s touring band and wrote songs for the late soul legend. He later formed indie pop project Las Los with a former Bradley bandmate and he’s obviously a prominent member of his family’s Doo-Wop inspired harmony group The Sha La Das. 

While this album borrows from and is a result of all of Paul’s past work, it’s also completely unique to the rest of his catalog and is the perfect embodiment of where he is at this point in his life.

“I’d like listeners to get a sense of hope for humanity,” Schalda concluded. “That moment when sonic vibration hits you, you uncontrollably get goosebumps. It’s rare. It’s real. I want that connection.”