Paria blends nostalgic Y2K r&b grooves with outré rhythms on ‘Tragic’

Blending a distinctive fusion of Iranian, Latin, and UK-urban influences into her own classification of pop, it’s fair to say Paria’s tones are of the world. She brings vitality to the tired Scandi-pop scene by soaking in and incorporating her DIY bedroom-pop essence with use of traditional Iranian instrument samples and multi-tracked, thickening vocal parts. Over the last year she’s received nods from the likes of BBC Introducing; having had her single ‘91’ picked as Record of the Week by Jericho Keys, and EARMILK who clocked onto previous single ‘Casual’. Hindered from full musical expression in Iran, following her move to Oslo, Paria, using her impressive vocal range and superb songwriting, produces a timbre of pop alluringly unclear in its direction, deviating in style track-by-track resulting in a resplendently unchained ethos – her backlash to years of creative obstruction. After banking a fair few hundred-thousand plays on her last three singles ‘Summer Blind’, ‘Low Blow’, and ‘Casual’ Paria initiates her third move towards her debut EP – ‘Popsicle’.

‘Tragic’ immediately opens with tongue-in-cheek lyricism, reflected nicely by cutesy monophonic melodies and Y2K-esque samples. Her characteristically abundant multi-tracked vocals – one of the only recurrent themes in her bedroom-pop free-style of songwriting – carry the track. Paria’s expertise amalgamation of nostalgic r&b and lo-fi bedroom-pop pulls themes from the likes of Rina Sawayama and SZA.

Paria tells us how ‘Tragic’ came about:

“So here’s the story behind “Tragic”: when I still had hope in Tinder, I went on a date with this guy, who was nothing like I’d imagined; he came to pick me up in this super ugly Austin Allegro, and took me on a little road trip. He started driving and the car began making weird noises, the heater didn’t work – not what you want in Oslo – and on top of that, he literally would not stop talking about himself and how great he was – ironically making up for the lack of hot air. At this point, I thought I was either going to get kidnapped or die in a crap-car crash. Luckily, I managed to think up an excuse and he drove me back… needless to say, I didn’t see him again…

When writing, I always try to make music that matches a picture in my mind. When I thought about this story it made me wanna make a beat that sounded like an arcade game. I think the story behind ‘Tragic’ is the kind of story that could be part of a pop-art comic book… you know, with the classic car and the couple with the speech bubbles where the girl’s telling the story… So I imagined the lyrics inside those speech bubbles and I wanted to make a beat that matched the picture.”