Castorp reminisces on rose-tinted denial on “Phoenix”

The previous track from baritone crooner Steffan Davies, aka Castorp, “Last Night On Earth”, was an existential tale of taking shelter in the past and having little faith in the present. Rather than rising from the ashes of this sceptical state, ex-choirboy Castorp takes a more inherently human journey on “Phoenix”, revealing all-too-natural flaws and imperfections entangled with the process of accepting change.

The track is a woozy fever-dream, with psychedelic impulses (“I try to grab hold of reality's hand”) and a melancholic urge - bordering on an obsession - to hide behind a safety blanket of denial.

“'Phoenix' was written at a time when the illogical side of my brain still thought that I would somehow wake up one morning to find that life was back to the way it used to be,” explains Davies. “I was resorting to a kind of magical thinking at the time because I didn’t want to accept the demise of that relationship. The song is like a snapshot of that strange period.”