Skydaddy’s newest EP is a decadent and delectable collection made up of layers of vivid instrumentation. 

Skydaddy, moniker of Rachid Fakhre, is a departure from his previous outfit Spang Sisters following what he recalls as “a heavy case of ego death and creative disillusionment” during Green Man 2022. As such ‘Pilot,’ and Skydaddy as a whole, provide the perfect recipe for his rebirth. This is both metaphorically represented in the chambers and pockets of sound, built through live instruments with their womb-like entombment and literally, in the reworking of the track ‘Tear Gas’ by Tyler Cryde (of Black Country, New Road fame). Exploring ideas of belonging, home and the wayward emotions that exist as a result of these concepts, Pilot begs the listener for multiple ruminations to savour every nook and cranny. 

‘Pilot’ welcomes the listener along Skydaddy’s journey of self (re)discovery, providing them with a freshly printed passport to enter his world of carefully composed and honest songs. Through Lennon-like crooning to the eerie whimsy of conflicted lyrics put to an echo-chamber of pumping strings, he allows the listener to discover their own reflection in the spaces between each layer. 

Made up of an 8-piece live band, Fakhre weaves in cellos, violins, piano and slow-picked guitars alongside more experimental sounds – like the clinking of chimes reminiscent of hot summer evenings out on the porch, flamingo-like castanets and the haunting call of a Prophet-8 synthesiser looped in the hypnotising track ‘Everything’. 

As a stand-out track, ‘Everything’ creates an uncanny valley of calm that dissects the dissonance of feeling out of place within one’s home in lyrics like “everything in its right place” sung with a level of disbelief. Each song holds a haunting quality that is neither good nor evil, rather ambiguous in the same way one imagines their place in a fast-paced society to be. Here the listener is faced with the prospect of beginning again, of being left incomplete.  

Replete with loops, layers and the reverberations of human touch, the EP possesses a sense of corporality. Each song carries weight to it, both lyrically through his use of precise poetics in tracks like ‘That Morning’ and ‘His Masterpiece’ and physically through the roomy phonetics found in the seemingly forgotten connection between human and instrument proudly exposed in ‘Lebanon Rising.’ 

Fakhre stretches his compositional muscles in track, ‘That Morning’ with a cacophony of conflict described through numerous tempo changes and impactful lyrics: “There’s fluoride in the water, now I’m feeling fine. Women and children are slaughtered right behind enemy lines”. He doesn’t shy away from difficult topics and provides each song with the space to breathe in their full complexity. Erring on the side of whimsy, ‘Pilot’ beckons the listener to repeatedly listen and rediscover it and themselves with each new pass.