Pushing the button on violet vinyl – Phillip Jon Taylor’s new album out today

by Margaret Chrystall | 28.06.2024

Five years might seem a lifetime ago for Phillip Blanco-Taylor since a step back from the frantic touring life of band PAWS to head home from Glasgow to the Highlands to recalibrate, but the time has created a different world that is just as busy.

Creative projects are hurtling out of the future – gigs, an art exhibition, his music, his own label and independent arts publishing house Wish Fulfillment Press, not least his new life as a dad with a son.

“I’m always exhausted!” laughs Phillip. “Everything since he arrived has been a blur!

“But it’s my favourite thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he says, fresh from dad duties and family routines with the two-year-old on Thursday evening, the night before the album release.

A typical day starts early with a six am start working on his painting before work, but juggling art, music and family seems to have been energising.

And today his latest album De Nada as Phillip Jon Taylor is released, a long time coming for him, created in his small home recording studio in Dornoch. But as he talks about it, it’s clear he has taken its making more slowly to get the tracks exactly how he wanted them.

“I love the album,” Phillip says when you ask him if it has turned out as planned. “I sat on it for a bit, got it mastered professionally and I’ve put it out on vinyl to put a flag up that said ‘Wish Fulfillment is here!’. I worked hard on it and it was a very natural process with me wearing separate hats.”

It’s a very Phillip Taylor album, packed with songs you have to replay quickly to catch intriguing lyrics, or strange sound effects that stutter or bell-like sounds that ring through the song.

Electronic instrumental Louvre Selfie plays with melody in ever-evolving arpeggios and freaks out the birds when you play it outside.

HAAR starts with almost whispered words that plant themselves in your head: ‘Bridge over the haar on the morning coach, one with ashtrays from the Seventies/ Do you want to walk into the wild with me? Where a breath is worth … breathing…’.

A snapshot appears from a North landscape: ‘A hawk tempting our fate from a great height … with an adder in its mouth…’

Or take the line that leaves you pondering ‘Happy in the silence most couldn’t bear’.

But maybe not surprisingly the musician has hardly left music on the back burner since arriving back on home territory. Fast rewind.

Releases include his self-titled electronic album Coping Mechanism, taking a long look at our full-on way of living in album Essential Maintenance For Human Happiness, EP Five Songs written, recorded and mixed by Phillip apart from “additional handclaps by Kaleigh Gowdy”, his partner. Last seven-tracker Supportive Partner Please Stand Here was another chance to experiment in his crofthouse studio. A soundtrack for poet David Ross Linklater sets itself in the Highland landscape and features both artists.

There was also a new PAWS album last year on prestigious New Jersey label EJRC (Ernest Jenning Record Company) with Wish Fulfillment, keeping the story moving forward as both Phillip and drummer Josh Swinney in London work on other projects, though there was a gig in Inverness from them in May.

“If PAWS goes quiet, it’s just geography. We’re doing our own thing,” Phillip reassures you.

And there will be dates to celebrate De Nada later in the year, he promises.

“I want to let the album be out there for a minute, so I will be doing those at some point.”

Phillip will also be holding an art exhibition at Eden Court in October.

He backtracks to his first art exhibition in Nairn in 2021.

“I had never done an exhibition of just paintings before, I had done photographs, but I’d never let people see my paintings!” he said. “I’d never really had any kind of courage to actually let people see them.

“It was like a first gig and a great learning curve – what went well, what didn’t.”

He was happy with all those who came along. As Phillip talks about the evolution of his painting and how it has developed, he gives a clear idea of the bigger part painting and art are playing in his life.

Formerly painting in a small room at home, Phillip emphasises how important it has been having a new place to paint in.

Working in the shop at Anta triggered the shift.

“I started working there three days a week and Anta has been really supportive of me doing independent artwork.

“They gave me a space to paint in and that’s been kind of revolutionary for me because I was only able to paint at home in a tiny bedroom before.  

“I go in and paint from six in the morning till my shift starts at nine.”

Building up Wish Fulfillment Press with all its roles goes from working for others and being an art publisher with pamphlets to being a label with all the roles to create and release an album, from choosing to work with Seabass Vinyl in Lothian, Scotland’s only vinyl press plant, to going down there, pressing the button on the violet vinyl and back to hand-stuffing the records in their sleeves before mailing out the pre-orders.

“I took my son to the record pressing last weekend in Edinburgh,” Phillip reveals. “I would rather he be a part of what I’m trying to do, so I’m just trying to include him in everything.”

The next few weeks will also mean a chance to hear Phillip play live.

With two sets with drums at Under Canvas next Friday (July 5), he says it will be more of a Friday night vibe than last year’s Sunday set, when it was Phillip with his Telecaster.

There will be another chance to see the musician play at the Seedlings stage at Belladrum on July 26.

Phillip said earlier about all the projects on the go: “It’s been relentless, but it’s what keeps me going. I can’t just do one thing. I’d just go crazy sitting on my hands thinking about doing stuff. It’s kind of an up and down, like now that the album is going out – that’s going to be a big weight off my mind to just do that.

“But it’ll all start again – something else will fill that small space, even though I’m enjoying that space.

“I make things a challenge for myself, but it’s also ‘This will never happen if I don’t try and make it happen’.

“And there’s a whole thing with doing it to keep myself safe,” he added frankly, referring to looking after his mental health.

With his Tain background, Phillip is grateful for the space he is being able to work in at Anta which started out 40 years ago this year, building on commitment to design and creating a business.

“It’s been around the whole time I’ve been here – me and my nana going in for soup,” he tells you, part of his life and creating things, as he is doing.

“It’s just so hard, even more so now trying to survive on selling things that you’re making, that takes time.

“For me, it’s a lot easier today. I can afford to actually, not gamble, maybe, but push the button for the vinyl albums or order CDs.

“It’s a life situation that is kind of silly, but it’s also just the passion for how much you want this thing to exist.”

Phillip Jon Taylor’s new album De Nada is out today (Friday, June 28) and you can get it on both: http://www.phillipjontaylor.bandcamp.com

https://wishfulfillmentpress.bandcamp.com

Find out more about Wish Fulfillment Press at: http://www.wishfulfillmentpress.com

You can see Phillip play at Eden Court’s Under Canvas on Friday, July 5 at 4.30pm and 8pm ). Tickets: www.eden-court.co.uk

He will also be playing at the Seedlings stage at the Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival on Friday, July 26: https://tartanheartfestival.com

You can see Phillip’s paintings in an exhibition at Eden Court from October 28 to November 29. Details soon: www.eden-court.co.uk