With Heliophilia, Niina Soleil has completed her “cosmic puzzle” –a term she invokes to better define the craft of songwriting. She explains: “When I’m working with other writers, it’s like a game that we’re all trying to solve; how do we make this story both fabulous and sensical? But when I’m writing by myself, it sometimes feels like a benevolent form of haunting. Like I’ll get a piece of an idea—a scrap of melody or lyric— and it’ll just… haunt me until I finish it. An unfinished song is a bit like a beautiful spirit with unfinished business if that makes any sense at all— I just try to interpret what the song wants to be until I’m satisfied that I got it right.” If each cosmic puzzle is one of Ms. Niina’s ghosts, then Heliophilia is her Winchester Mansion. Each apparition telling of the bright days of life, the human pleasures, illusive love, and the feeling of sand between their toes.

But no song haunts like Soleil’s ‘Whiskey Valentine,’ her first single of the album. This track finds her shining under cover of darkness, blazing bold across the San Bernardino county line. Leaving the beach and heading for the cacti-speckled territory of Lana Del Ray’s haunting lilt, Jack Nietzche’s baritone twang, and Joni Mitchell’s perpetual nights. Star-crossed sentiments inspire a lyric that conveys the fun of being bad in the kind of place where anything goes.

Heliophilia:

1. Beautiful Nowhere
2. Make It Summer
3. Happy Pills
4. Flowers On Fire
5. Lonely In Love
6. See Red
7. Whiskey Valentine
8. Psychedelic Sunshine
9. Irish Goodbye

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“‘Flowers on Fire’ was basically done in a few hours, after several shots of mezcal and a flurry of musical ideas ping-pong,” said Niina. “My co-writers for this song, Jeremy Ruzumna and Erik Janson, are both out of their minds in the best way possible. Musical geniuses and huge goofballs. We had a blast. Lyrically, ‘Flowers on Fire’ is about passion and tension, suspense and release. It’s also sort of a challenge, a ‘your move,’ kind of song. Like, the ball’s in your court— so what’re you going to do about it?

“So much of my lyrics are imagery and word puzzles, with meter and rhythm and rhyme. And I always seem to subconsciously make life hard for myself lyrically! I mean, I rhymed ‘subterranean’ with ‘rein me in’ in my head and then I had to write an entire verse around that idea alone. So extra.”

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