Cari Cari - Flight Attendant - Phil Thornalley
Cari Cari have shared the newest single to be released from their forthcoming album Welcome To Kookoo Island due out on September 16th, 2022 via Perla Nera Records. Despite sharing a name with the album, their new single ‘Welcome To Kookoo Island’ takes the listener on a soft and gentle daydream, stepping away from their usually zestful and energetic bursts of psychedelia.
“While Cari Cari was founded with the aim of placing their music in a Tarantino flick, ‘Welcome To Kookoo Island’ would probably be a better fit for Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom” says guitarist Alexander Koeck. The new single sees the duo unplug their electric guitars and take the listener on a magical boat ride down the Mississippi, longing for the innocence of childhood, letting go of the trouble of adult life and, as the lyrics say, “whatever I can’t change I will just let go”.
Cari Cari is Stephanie Widmer (vocals, drums & didgeridoo) and Alexander Koeck (vocals, guitars). Since their inception, Cari Cari have been tirelessly working to create their own world, carefully crafting everything from their music to their artwork, videos to set design in-house. This meticulous attention to detail has earned the band a loyal following; Rolling Stone Magazine called them ‘the biggest discovery of Primavera Sound Festival’, their die-hard fans sold out 1000+ capacity rooms across Europe and their debut album was praised by the likes of NME, KCRW, Rolling Stone, IndieShuffle and many more.
However, for the band, all roads have led them to Kookoo Island. The product of years of world-building, Welcome To Kookoo Island, was born from a desire to retreat from modern-day life completely. “Kookoo Island is our libertatia, the utopia of what we think the world should be like,” explains Widmer. “It seems to be cuckoo to dream of such a place right now, but dreaming of what we want the world to be like is the first step towards making it a reality,” she continues.
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Flight Attendant has unveiled the video for new single "Crybaby" and announced their upcoming debut full length will be out on September 30th. Flight Attendant belongs to that breed of rock bands made in Nashville, where their sound is nothing less than a sonic unicorn. Blending sounds of grunge with power-pop hooks, viola and light synth textures, they have begun to create a hypnotic sound and energy all of their own.
The group met through many shared interests, friend circles and glasses of wine. Karalyne (Lead Vocals, Keys, certified Sommelier, originally from Kansas City, Kansas) met Vinny Maniscalco (Vocals, Guitar, award-winning bartender, originally from Boston, Massachusetts) while bartending together at Nashville restaurant 5th & Taylor where Nikki Christie (Vocals, Viola, great at drinking wine, originally from Los Angeles, California) joined in too. It didn’t take many nights of cocktail making and wine tasting before the band formed. With the addition of drummer, and long time drinking buddy Derek Sprague (drums, lager lover and also from Boston, Massachusetts) the lineup was complete. Together the group has released a collection of singles including pulsating grooves like “Man of Chaos,” which was described by numerous media outlets as one of the best singles of 2020.
Flight Attendant has played sold out shows from Nashville, TN, to Austin,TX, including SXSW 2022, Tomato Art Festival and the Nashville Film Festival - where they have entranced audiences, sold out merch and created a fitting example of what's to come. They are now gearing up for a European Tour in the Fall to support their debut album, produced by Grammy Winning engineer and producer, Charles Yingling. With the help of their cabin crew, Flight Attendant is quickly making a name for themselves on the global stage.
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A quick scan of the many records Phil Thornalley has worked on, and you’ll quickly spot some of the biggest names in popular music, including Bryan Adams, Thompson Twins, The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, XTC, Duran Duran, and even Paul McCartney. Phil co-wrote and produced Natalie Imbruglia’s 1997 worldwide smash “Torn,” and has written hits with Pixie Lott (“Mama Do”) and BBMak (“Back Here”). A kind of rock’n’roll Zelig, his name is probably on countless records in your collection, although you probably didn’t even know it was him. That bass line on The Cure’s “Love Cats”? That’s Phil. The haunting and ethereal production on Prefab Sprout’s “When Love Breaks Down”? That’s Phil too.
Now, on his latest offering, Now That I Have Your Attention, Phil Thornalley steps out of The Swamp (his North London studio) to unveil 11 catchy and brand-new original songs (plus three bonus tracks on the CD!) that find him exploring the production stylings pioneered by the Electric Light Orchestra’s Brummie boffin, Jeff Lynne.
Thornalley celebrates the fine musicality and pure joy of Lynne’s widescreen symphonic string sections, the bare-faced brutality of his straight-ahead rhythm bed tracks, and plenty of multi-tracked and stacked harmony vocals. On tracks like “Stand By Love,” and “High On Your Supply,” Thornalley makes more than a passing nod towards Lynne’s carefully layered sonic tableau, from the multiple acoustic guitars to the highly specific electric guitar lines.
Clearly, it’s a sound that Thornalley can’t get out of his head. “Maybe we should have called it the Traveling Phil-burys,” Thornalley jokes, “but I enjoyed the earlier ELO records, and the way they married a crummy beat combo with the grandeur of a full orchestra - it was over-the-top but infectiously musical, creating a foundation of the oxymoronic ‘controlled’ rock and roll drums and a super simple bass guitar.”
Why, you may well ask, would a lauded and Grammy-nominated songwriter and producer (and the focus of a recent in-depth career retrospective story in the American trade magazine, Tape Op) decide to record an album with both feet planted haphazardly in the squelch of the seventies sounds of ELO and glam rock? Because it’s fun.
“When I listen to pop radio these days,” says Phil Thornalley, “no one seems to be having any fun. In my teenage years, every other record you heard was ridiculous. I think that sense of fun is missing from today’s often turgid, doleful would-be soul singers moaning about their millionaire ennui.”
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