Holly: The Candyfloss EP

Hello everyone 

Hope you’re all doing well and are taking care of yourselves through these strange times! 

I’ve been keeping myself occupied by writing some new music and I’ve also been having a look through the dusty vaults of my hard drive for older ideas to revisit. In the process, I came across the recordings of my solo EP and thought it would be a good blog topic. Before I joined the Sages, I did my own solo thing under the name Holly Roseanna and three years ago I shared my very first release, ‘The Candyfloss EP’. 

I was lucky to work with some very talented people making this record. Sean Duddy recorded the EP who is now working with some fantastic bands from all over Scotland, Claire Barclay Draws who designed the lovely artwork and my very talented friend Graeme Sharp who plays the keys on the title track ‘Candyfloss’. My mum took the photo of me on the cover too!

The EP is made up of 4 tracks and I thought I'd talk a bit about the inspiration behind them. 

The first track on the EP, ‘Candyfloss’ is quite a sweet, acoustic guitar tune about trying to reassure a loved one who has insecurities. It’s quite a chilled out little waltz and Graeme does a fantastic piano solo on it. 

‘Unreturned’ was a fun song to write. I wrote this when I started to experiment with jazzy sounding piano chords. It has a bit of an R&B vibe and we now perform this with The Passing Sages - Carrie is great at singing it! 

The ‘The Devil’s Hold’ explores the idea of a cursed ship and I was inspired to write this after reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula. My favourite chapter is when The Count is being transported from Transylvania to England on the Demeter - by the time the boat reaches Whitby there is no one left alive! After researching some ghost stories and sea shanties I discovered the legend of the ‘SS Ourang Medan’, a tragic tale in which the whole crew of a boat perish under very mysterious circumstances. After hearing a distress call, a neighbouring ship, The Silver Star, comes to the rescue only to discover that the whole crew on board have died with no obvious cause of death, later to discover that perhaps the vessel was carrying some poisonous gasses or toxic cargo below deck. 

‘The Gardener’ is the last song on the EP and I wrote this for my dad and how he loves nature. He’s always watching the buzzards in the trees, listening for woodpeckers or telling me about the lovely gardens he worked in. I wanted to highlight the simple pleasures in life in this tune - flowers, music, love and family! 

This EP is really special to me because it gave me an opportunity to work with my dad, who is a fantastic guitar player. I don’t always get the opportunity to jam with him so it was great being able to play and write some music together and learn a thing or two from him in the process. 

I’m very proud of my first (and only!) EP and I enjoy having a listen to it every now and again. It’s always funny to listen back and see how my songwriting style has developed! 

You can listen on Spotify

Or on my YouTube page

Holly