Homing Instinct:
the debut album from Edward Randell

Stream the full album
Download Hi-res images (photo credits: Matilda Hill-Jenkins)

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Album launch show with full band:
Crazy Coqs, London, 21st May 2024

On his full-length debut, London singer-songwriter Edward Randell paints a picture of home and a map of how to get back there. Blending the mellowness of 1970s troubadour classics with surprising flourishes of theatricality, the album sounds like James Taylor and Rufus Wainwright sharing a pot of English Breakfast.

After a decade spent touring the globe with Grammy-winning vocal group The Swingles, singing in venues from La Scala to Birdland, Homing Instinct finds the 35-year-old coming to terms with domesticity. Following two solo EP releases that garnered attention from BBC 6 Music and Radio Devon, the album’s 12 songs are the fullest expression to date of Edward’s distinctive songwriting voice.

The canvas stretches from chamber pop to yacht rock, Americana to bossa nova, but always grounded in guitar, piano and Edward’s warm blanket of a voice. Small details illuminate universal themes, as in the lyric for Love Doesn’t Mind: “It’s a spinning galaxy / or the tiny vortex dancing in your morning tea.” Eiderdown is a plea for hope against the backdrop of the refugee crisis. And the poignant closing ballad Hands (It Takes A Lifetime) tells the story of a marriage through the image of two clasped hands.

The tone for the project was set by the discofied opening track Magic M7, in which Edward looked to his 17-year old self for advice. “It was an exercise in trusting my gut as a songwriter and not chasing some idea of what was cool,” he reflects. “I was trying to be more like the teenage me who was learning Burt Bacharach chords and hadn’t built up too many protective coats of irony”.

When it came time to record, Edward approached Chris Hyson (Snowpoet, The Magic Lantern) to co-produce. “I kept seeing Chris’s name in the credits of records I loved, and had a strong intuition that he was the right person to help bring these songs to life,” he says. “He has this patient gift for fitting exactly the right sound to the emotion.” With Chris engineering and playing bass, Edward drew on his own experience as an arranger to swathe the songs in vocal harmonies, horns and strings. “I love the colour and character of Edward’s music and his lyrical charm,” says Chris. “Throughout the process of making this album together I grew more and more attached to the songs and it was a joyful experience to be a part of their evolution.”

 The album’s cast of collaborators also includes West End star Anoushka Lucas on junk-shop-cabaret duet Pre-Loved, trombonist Raph Clarkson and jazz harpist Tara Minton, with D. James Goodwin (This Is The Kit, Anaïs Mitchell) on mixing and mastering duties. The result is high thread-count music: intricately woven, luxurious and deeply comforting.

Credits:

All songs written and arranged by Edward Randell, except 4 written by Edward Randell / MaJiKer, and 7 written by Edward Randell / Anoushka Lucas.

Produced by Chris Hyson and Edward Randell. Engineered by Chris Hyson. Additional engineering by Lloyd Haines and Alex Haines at Basement 10, and Morten Vinther at aeps studio.

Mixed and mastered by D. James Goodwin at The isokon.

Edward Randell - vocals, guitars, keys, programming
Chris Hyson - bass, synth
Thomas Broda - drums
Alex Haines - guitars
Morten Vinther - piano, tambourine (4)
Tara Minton - harp
Laura Ayoub - violin
Richard Phillips - cello
Luke Vice-Coles - trumpet, flugelhorn
Harry Greene - tenor saxophone
Raph Clarkson - trombone
Anoushka Lucas - vocals (7)
Sara Brimer Davey, Sumudu Jayatikala, Scarlet Halton, Ben See, Ed Blunt, Woody Lewenstein, David Rael - backing vocals

Cover photography by Matilda Hill-Jenkins
Studio photography by Dave Hamblett