Phillip Jon Taylor and Heidi Browne – two styles, one showcase

Phillip Jon Taylor + Heidi Browne | Under Canvas, Eden Court, Inverness | July 5

by Margaret Chrystall

I’d be surprised if there were any more contrasting pairings in the Under Canvas double bills this summer than Phillip Jon Taylor and Heidi Browne.

Or as Phillip put it – praising the idea of matching diverse sounds, after Heidi’s first set and halfway through his, their style contrast – “… goes from acoustic music to a bunch of noise, so it’s great!”

His description was good for both musicians’ music, but didn’t tell the whole story. His songs are far more sophisticated and subtle than a “bunch of noise”, but the words from him are typically modest and tongue-in-cheek.

And for anyone taking Heidi Browne’s music at face value, acoustic music, guitar and at first sight a country edge – from gorgeous down-home patchwork skirt to the break in her voice – there were surprises. Not the entire picture…

Phillip Jon Taylor – also half of long-running band PAWS – had brought two musicians with him for his set – schoolfriend Lewis Mackenzie on drums and Craig Howieson on bass.

There were also backing tracks which brought alive the sounds of Phillip’s new solo album De Nada on his own Wish Fulfilment Press label – from the stuttering notes of first track The Catalyst to the bell-like, xylophone sounds from his instrument playbox on many of the tracks.

As Phillip told the crowd: “We’re playing a lot of these songs for the first time.”

They sounded muscular and thrilling, ringing out across the Under Canvas tent, and slotting in as the next step in a set made up of songs from earlier EPs and albums – album Supportive Partner Please Stand Here, cassette 5 Songs, PAWS album Youth Culture Forever and a cover that Phillip signalled was an important song in his own evolution as a musician.

First song The Catalyst came right up to date with the opening of the new album. Sounds – guitar, the stuttering notes of the piano tune (on backing track) and big drums. But here, live, the lazy quiet echoey almost-whisper at times of Phillip’s recorded vocals were bigger and brighter on stage.

In tune with a lot of the songs chosen for the set, the journey took us from Phillip as the hopeful wannabe music kid to the life of a dad with a kid himself, the lyric’s subtext documenting Phillip’s changing life.

In The Catalyst the wry words brought us up to date: “I am up just about early enough for the first while in years/ About as close to the bar I get these days/ with these 7am longstanding Channel 4 reruns of Cheers”.

Throughout, the songs often gave you the musician’s career constant, the signature honest insights into his life.

Rear Window headed back to touring with his indie band PAWS, Carnation delved into family experiences and revelation, Tongues documented the painful experience of a break-up, HAAR lyrics make a powerful love song and Good Dogs considered parenting from its first line “I promise that I will always try to answer questions” to the final heartfelt one “I’m living for tomorrow and you”.

“This is nice,” Phillip smiled at the crowd before a typically short and to the point introduction. “This is about the farm where I live.”

And that song Quite The Ark from EP 5 Songs has birds and cows in it. But maybe an ark isn’t totally for him: “… Much more likely to find me somewhere over there, in the background somewhere…”

Just when you thought his often poetic soundbite lines have come from pure imagination, like the song’s  – “Last night the burn’s bank burst/ And all the cows have gone swimming…” – Phillip told us at the end that it was a true story and that when he’d seen the cows up to their necks in water he did a double-take, not knowing before that cows could swim.

He told the audience he hoped he could live up to the vocal of Tendertwin (Bilge Nur Yilmaz) who had originally provided guest vocals on the recorded song of Rear Window with him.

And his tributes continued when he took a moment to introduce the show’s one cover, revealing: “We’re going to play a song from deep in the early 2000s, from a band that are my favourite band in the Highlands and my favourite song ever by a Scottish band, so it felt apt we played it. Baby Orff were my favourite band in Inverness when I lived in Tain – they made me want to be in a band!”

Their performance of Baby Orff’s Indian Song was beautiful and muscular –and lines like “Where are you now? Nothing’s the same to me!” set off questions about where those band members might be and what they might be up to now!

Phillip played alone for Carnation – once he laughingly sorted out a weird tuning. Then, from the past of PAWS, Tongues – a break-up song with a killer melody and story that draws you in as the angsty loud indie-rock sound  ensured it was a live thriller : “Well some things are too hard to talk about … I don’t know what you want from me any more? I don’t know where you sleep. Are you safe? Do you eat? Sometimes we are forced to accept defeat.”

Quieter and less frantic and raw than it was on PAWS album Youth Culture Forever, was it less powerful, all these years on? No.

The years have seen Phillip complete a dream to set up his own label and art publisher Wish Fulfillment Press and he talked about it to the crowd. There was also a freedom and relaxed confidence in this performance of the new songs that was as questioning and wide-ranging as it registers this contemporary world, as it is frank about the need for self-care and love to survive and accept and celebrate this weird life.

Good Dogs closed the set – all three musicians going for it and the last song of many we heard that showed soft to loud, proper dynamics from a set of them through the songs.

Plus there was a special extra thrill. To check out the merchandise stall, always impressive from the musician and artist, and find another Phillip production – his toddler son helping out dad!

Heidi Browne had fitted the description of acoustic from the start of her opening set – and some country influences.

But with quirky stories and lyrics, offbeat instruments and worldly-wise humour, the music experience was part of a unique experience that oozed quirky laid-back personality and was utterly individual.

With the free-spirited ease of a troubadour, Heidi told us her two sets in Inverness were part of a self-financed tour, initially packing up her Jetta and hoping to pay her own way while promoting her most recent album Spirits Alive and selling her CDs to fund the journey.

“If anyone has £10 burning a hole in their pocket, this is a very organic tour …” she explained.

And even in the first few songs, the singer songwriter had subtly managed to highlight her “two CDs for £15 offer with free badge” offer. Cleverly, she also reminded us there was another chance to see her later in Under Canvas’s second show.

Introducing fourth song High All Day from Spirits Alive, Heidi said: “This one is about being up in a hot air balloon – I’ll tell you more in the second show!”

Heidi revealed that a daydream of Victorian dresses hanging on a washing line in the breeze had inspired her Spirits Away album. We’d already been charmed by then and were never going to be offended by the subtle salesmanship of a musician seeking commercial survival.

Anyway, early on you had clocked the soft but also strong vocal with powerful vibrato, the confidently strummed guitar and had been offered a helpful quick insight into her unfolding sound: “I like all kinds of music, country, jazz, blues ….

“And this one accidentally sounds like Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours… “ she informed us three songs in.

”Apparently it’s a good marketing tag!”

The new album songs Watertight and title track Spirits Alive had opened the show – with the story of Heidi asking her family to appear as ghosts in the video (I can confirm star performances when you watch it on heidibrowne.co.uk

Vocal mannerisms were peppered through the songs, and easy-to-join- in choruses like “oh-a-oh” or “Woo-e-woo”. But it was Cheese Dreams from the latest album – inspired by former vegan Heidi’s weird dreams after eating cheese that really challenged us.

Well have you ever been asked to shape a cheese triangle then rest your head on your hands?

Heidi had been demonstrating her moves earlier at the theatre and realising Anton de Beke was there for his dance show grinned: “I’ll teach Anton later!”

The audience seemed to enjoy their part, while Heidi sang the slightly unsettling lyrics “I had a dream I was kissing a corpse and bits of his face were falling off … See for yourself, there’s a corpse in my bed!”

But keeping you entertained, there were surprises throughout the set – Heidi’s accomplished whistling, playing ukelele and adding mouth trumpet – her lips sounding remarkably like the real thing and reappearing to really add to the jazzy G.I.R.L.F.R.I.E.N.D.

A couple of hints that she was no longer the twentysomething who had written one of the songs for her younger, higher voice but was now in her thirties, made it easy to believe Heidi was philosophical about love. It seemed strong when early on she hadn’t got a boyfriend with her and was managing her tour solo. Later she made us laugh with the song line: ” I’m not saying I’m in love with you – yeugh!!”

But Train Of Thought told another story, a grown-up, bittersweet “… reverie, for anyone who, for whatever reason, can’t be with this person – geography or they’re married maybe, but in some future moment you can get back together”. The song cut to honest pain and hope: “Yes, I’ll wait for you and maybe it’s a shot in the dark, but I’ll pray for you/ Will you wait for me?”.

Not talented in sport, Heidi told us, her speciality was ping-pong and yoga, with photos of her crab moves on tour at every venue on her Instagram. The subject came up when she revealed a guitar chord had hurt her hand.

“This is my first time playing Under Canvas, hopefully I’ll be here again,” Heidi said before describing how she enjoyed being without the band, driving through Scotland.

“I love the hills, the beauty of the unfathomable expansive landscape…”

Sounded like a song. Cue mouth trumpet …

+ Phillip Jon Taylor will be playing at Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival at the Seedlings Stage on Friday (July 26), check for timings. The latest album De Nada – in a variety of formats – is just out on his own label and art publisher, Wish Fulfillment Press (http://www.wishfulfillment press) and you can also buy it and many of his albums on Bandcamp: http://www.phillipjontaylor.bandcamp.com

Follow on X (Twitter): @pipjontaylor and PAWS on X: @wehavepaws

Heidi Browne’s album Spirits Alive is out now. More details about Heidi: www.heidibrowne.co.uk And catch Heidi’s yoga crab tour pix and Cheese Dreams moves on her Instagram @heidibrownemusic