Skydaddy

Skydaddy, the moniker of London-born Lebanese/Grenadian artist, Rachid Fakhre, has today (10 Oct) shared the details of his new, upcoming EP Anchor Chains, Plane Motors & Train Whistles releasing 10 January via his own Fakhre’s label Bathtime Sounds. Alongside the announcement of the EP, Skydaddy has shared a new single ‘Age of Empires’.
Through blooming and wilting passages of flutes, strings and acoustic guitars, “Age Of Empires” is a modern chamber folk epic, Skydaddy’s most ambitious arrangement yet. Playing almost every instrument, Skydaddy’s lilting vocal glides from low velvet croon to a high, hopeful trill, dancing amongst the crotchets and quavers of the joyous baroque-pop composition.

Speaking on his new single, Skydaddy offers:

“I’d heard the song ‘Shouting in a Bucket Blues’ by Kevin Ayers and wanted to make a song just like it but sing about the fruitless search for inspiration when the world around seems dull and dark. I took the intro chords from an old hip-hop beat I had made that was inspired by T-Pain’s ‘Buy U a Drank’. The first half of the song is optimistic and dreamlike while the second half recounts a real personal anecdote. The chords there are inspired by George Harrison’s ‘Wah-Wah’. I guess you could say the song is an ode to music.”

Skydaddy’s upcoming EP “Anchor Chains, Plane Motors & Train Whistles” serves as the follow up to February 2024 EP ‘Pilot’. The title of the new EP is taken from the mouth of George Bailey of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, the words symbolise a blind faith in technological advancement. Even a century on, these sound images denote grandeur and expanse. This is what Skydaddy wanted to achieve in the sound of this forthcoming record: a surrendering of being tied to the old world and an exploration of modern anxieties. Being his favourite film, it is apt that a source of such sentimentality,

Following the success of Pilot, Fakhre began to work with. Balasz Altsach (Katy J Pearson, Broadside Hacks, Ugly, Dave, Central Cee), with the pair working together at Church Studios in London. Fakhre assembled an ensemble of some of London’s most exciting new acts to sing in the choir including members of Back Country New Road, Tapir!, Ugly, Ethan P Flynn & Silver Gore. The only EP track to not have its origins in the UK is the EPs singular love song, who’s birth in the US came during a run of shows promoting the Pilot in LA in April 2024. Charlie Daniels - an engineer at Sunset Sound -  reached out to him and offered to bring him in to use the studio. There, Fakhre recorded ‘Allicin’, a song he’d written 3 years before; a Jessica Pratt-inspired love song to garlic.

George Bailey’s words ironically echo over the EP’s closing reprise - the singular moment of intimate, unpolished bedroom exotica.

Skydaddy began life in early 2023 as an offshoot of his previous acclaimed project Spang Sisters. Before releasing any music, there was a buzz around the new project in the London scene - 2 weeks before Fakhre released his first single, ‘That Morning’, he toured the UK with his 7-piece backing band supporting Black Country, New Road. Following that, he spent the rest of that year releasing singles - including ‘Tear Gas’ a collaboration with BC, NR’s Tyler Hyde - that  eventually became part of his debut mini-album Pilot.

2 February 2024, the release quickly garnered Skydaddy a reputation for creating unparalleled, beautiful chamber folk and an extraordinary live show. The songs on Pilot demonstrated his compositional prowess and ambitious production and arrangements. As Clash wrote, “‘Pilot’ is a reclamation of the multi-instrumentalist’s Lebanese heritage… careening between ambient-jazz sound collages, marathon orchestral codas and oblique confessionals”. Fakhre took his show on the road on a UK-wide headline tour soon after Pilot’s release, selling out shows in Edinburgh, Brighton and Bristol, finishing with a headline at London’s 100 Club.