Skydaddy

Skydaddy, the moniker of London-born Lebanese/Grenadian artist, Rachid Fakhre, has today (10 Jan) released his EP Anchor Chains, Plane Motors & Train Whistles via his own label Bathtime Sounds. To celebrate the release today, Skydaddy embarks on a UK wide tour, with Record Shop instore dates and full band gigs throughout January and February. Full listings below and tickets on sale now.

Offering some words on his new EP, Skydaddy says:

“Anchor Chains, Plane Motors & Train Whistles” – taken from the mouth of George Bailey of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, the words symbolise a blind faith in technological advancement. He described these as the “three greatest sounds in the world.” Even a century on, these sound images denote grandeur and expanse. This is what I 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”

Skydaddy’s sophomore EP “Anchor Chains, Plane Motors & Train Whistles” serves as the follow up to February 2024 EP ‘Pilot’.

The run of singles ahead of the EP include lead track “Mushrooms”, a sardonic pop song, intentionally vulgar in grandeur, drawing on footage of the chemical explosion that devastated Fakhre’s familial country of Lebanon in August 2020. Follow up single “Age of Empires” flows through blooming and wilting passages of flutes, strings and acoustic guitars, a modern chamber folk epic and potentially Skydaddy’s most ambitious arrangement yet. Most recent single “Allicin”, a self declared ‘Lovesong to garlic’, contains all the hallmarks of upcoming EP Anchor Chains, Plane Motors & Train Whistles, as finger-picked guitars gently dissolve into swelling strings and flute. Watch the video for Age of Empires below (video for Mushrooms out next week):

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.