Pre-Saves Now Available for the 1st Single of the Next E.G. Phillips Album

My previous post about recording background vocals at Hyde Street Studios led to recording my next full album there and the 1st single for that album will be available on Friday, December 10th.

This first track is a Bossa Nova treatment of a song I put out a home demo of during the malaise of 2020's pandemic imposed isolation called "Till We Have Faces Again." This version has the benefit of full backing band as well as a flugelhorn and flute duo.  The combination of warmth and lightness of those two instruments give this breezy piece a distinctly vintage vibe at the outset.

This song is one of the rare compositions I've written during the pandemic that I have some affection for and feel like I’ll still want to play long after all of the quarantining and masking are (hopefully) long in the rearview mirror.  The title and verses allude to C.S. Lewis’ retelling of the myth Cupid and Psyche — a story I found myself thinking about in the context of the the whole shutdown mishegas. Psyche’s situation — its strangeness, her isolation, and the consequences she suffered for trying to break form it — seemed to resonate.

The pandemic had the unfortunate effect of making all songs written prior to it feel somewhat alien, like relics from a bygone era when we went places and interacted with people. At the same time songs about the pandemic felt like they would have a limited shelf life, or at the very least be a bit depressing to revisit. That, and it was that much harder to write in general. At some point during the whole ordeal, this one popped out of me and it actually felt like a good entry point into the collection of songs that has become the album “Alien from an Alternate Earth.”

The remainder of the album are of songs I played regularly together during my sets at the Hotel Carlton during their evening wine service (prior to... all that).  As a consequence, they feel like part of a larger whole to me and I'm pleased they have been recorded together as well.  The songs are backed by a crack group of session musicians playing a range of jazz styles from West Coast cool to a frenetic big band closer.  I look forward to sharing these songs over the coming months and the release of the full album in April.

​If you use Spotify, you can "pre-save" the track so it automatically appears on your list of songs to listen to on the day it comes out.