Songwriter Offers A Mellower Take On Staple of His Repertoire

SAN FRANCISCO - Feb. 12, 2025 - PRLog -- Songwriter E.G. Phillips first released the original more raucous version of "The Albatross Song" as the opening track to his second album "At Home at Sea." While Phillips still has a great fondness for the madness of that recording — its wildness, its exuberant brass section, its unhinged number of choruses — it is a song that exists in two forms in his mind.

In addition to its mercurial sibling, there is also the more mellow, more contemplative vibe that it closer to its protean state when the Midwest native first started messing with the chords to an old cowboy song one Thanksgiving day and clearly had birds on the brain.

"Way I remember it, albatross was a ship's good luck, 'til some idiot killed it."
— Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, Serenity

Phillips often refers to this song as his attempt to "rehabilitate the reputation of one our fine feathered friends who has been much maligned by a poem."

This is the first of a half dozen songs this Bay Area based "Bob Dylan with flatted fifths" has recorded with two time Grammy winning producer/arranger Argentine native Nahuel Bronzini (Mixing Engineer, Fantastic Negrito) and his musical counterpart from Chile, Felipe Ubeda (aka Cigarbox Man). After watching Bronzini record a string quartet at an edition of the Music Expo conference, Phillips initially got in touch with him to score a version of his song "Sunday is Made for Loving" that had been covered by alt-pop artist Samantha Margret. But E.G. had always had in mind to do a more in depth project.

"My music is often described as 'cinematic' in nature so it only seemed natural to have them scored as such and Nahuel seemed like a natural fit for that project" says Phillips.

Phillips had in mind some particular soundtracks — such as the animated short "The Rain Horse" by John Zorn as well as scores by Jon Brion and Carter Burwell. In addition to Ubeda handling guitar duties, the suite features a small chamber ensemble consisting of Omree Gal-Oz on piano, Curtis Aikens on upright bass, and Chloe Mendola on cello. This track also features Daniel Riera on flute.

Phillips will be debuting additional tracks over the next handful of months in the run up to the June release of the full EP, which will be entitled "Tricks of the Light."

"The Albatross Song (Mellow Like)" is available as of February 12th on all streaming music platforms as well as Phillips' bandcamp site (https://egphillips.bandcamp.com/). For more information and links to other platforms, see the online liner notes (https://www.duckswithpants.com/tricksofthelight.html) for the Tricks of the Light EP.