Ahoy! Naval gazing!

For lovers of metaphorical maritime melancholy comes melodic ballad Shipwrecked Love, the second song and EP from Phil Thornalley’s forthcoming album Holly Would.

Swirling piano, chopping cellos, fluttering flute and vocoder voices embrace the singer’s siren song of a love on the rocks. One-man orchestra Karl McComas-Reichl layers accompaniment of Thornalley’s string arrangement.

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“Over the years, as a formally untrained musician, I have been drawn to the emotion that strings can bring to a song. I suppose I’ve been diligent in studying how to arrange with years in the studio seeing other top pop arrangers at work. Del Newman, Paul Buckmaster, George Fenton, Charles Blackwell and Sal Herbert have all written arrangements for recordings I was producing, writing or engineering. With the power of modern string sample libraries it’s possible for me to sketch an authentic arrangement and then convert that into a score for the players, who can overdub themselves from their home studios, bringing their beautiful craft to colour my probably laughable scratchings. Karl records in California and sends the results to me in West Hampstead.”

“Once I’d decided on shipwrecked as the theme it felt good, the lyrics seemed to come naturally. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell a story in so few lines but they fell into place quickly.”

Riding the waves of the title track the EP includes two non-album tracks with simpler productions. The late era Beatle-ish Could You Be Loved and the hybrid acoustic ballad Too Many Goodbyes.

“Throughout my career, whilst trying to write, possibly contrive , ‘hit’ songs for other artists, I’ve had many other songs fall into my lap, from the sky into my hands. I started collecting these ‘found’ songs from the last few years for an album of perhaps more introspective feel; keeping them less arranged, looser in playing style and even more naturally ‘me’. I love singing harmony vocals and enjoyed the intertwining coda of Too Many Goodbyes. I suppose they are more singer-songwriter songs rather than singer-with-a-full-band blasting away.”

“Having shelved the idea of a niche album from an admittedly already niche artist, I felt I wanted to still share them anyway. It’s a natural reflection of the way I feel my way through a song just strumming and humming with my guitar . I realise later the unconscious influence of The Beatles, solo Macca and even Weezer”. Shipwrecked Love is the only ballad on the Holly Would album, so the tone of this EP doesn’t reflect the sound of the album overall. But with the abundance of songs pouring out of Thornalley in recent years it seemed a shame for them to go unheard and natural to group these tracks into a melancholic set.

“Sometimes writing songs is like a surfer catching a wave: you struggle to get past the breakers but once you get the right energy it can be a beautiful, graceful ride to the shore”.

The 3-track Shipwrecked Love EP is out now. Pre-order the album Holly Would now for release on March 29th.. Pre-orders from Lojinx.com include instant grat mp3 downloads of the Shipwrecked Love EP.