![Phil Taylor's new album 'Long to Look' was 20 years in the making. Picture supplied. Phil Taylor's new album 'Long to Look' was 20 years in the making. Picture supplied.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/156570134/7c01a5df-cdcb-4d40-9d3a-3db62449fc2e.jpg/r0_195_578_601_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
An optometrist who works in Narooma has just launched his second album, which took two decades to complete.
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Nickelback's 'How You Remind Me' topped the charts the year Batemans Bay's Phil Taylor began working on his second album. The first version of the iPod had just been dropped and music was just becoming digital.
Phil was recording in a friend's home studio in St Louis, Missouri using a big box of a computer that was as wide as it was thick.
The year was 2002, and Phil never envisaged he would be launching the album more than 20 years later in The Olive Tree centre, North Batemans Bay.
A sudden family tragedy brought Phil home and hit pause on album creating.
"It's always been a dream to record the second album," Phil said.
In 2005, he returned to America aiming to finish the project. He traversed the American music scene - Memphis, North Carolina and Nashville - for inspiration and to learn from professional musicians.
"It was sense of adventure - taking my songs and seeing what happened," Phil said.
The American inspiration runs through his album, including the use of an Appalachian dulcimer in the work.
The album wasn't finished in 2005, and he returned to Australia shelving, just ever-so momentarily he promised himself, the project a little longer.
![The front cover of Phil's album Long to Look. Picture supplied. The front cover of Phil's album Long to Look. Picture supplied.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/156570134/11160d9c-9881-4a96-9630-9bd62d8125c4.png/r0_0_822_769_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
An album shaped by life
It was only when Surf Beach sound technician and solo musician Rhys Duursma urged Phil to finish off the project and offered to mix the sounds that Phil started writing music again.
"The latest songs on the album couldn't have happened without living life," he said.
For example, the most popular song on Spotify 'Sweet Melody' is about the loss of Phil's three-day old daughter and dedicated to her and the friends and family who supported the Taylor family through the devastating time.
In many ways, the album captures the highs and lows of the last 20 years of Phil's life and music has helped him ride out the adventure.
"Music is a way of telling a story and describing a journey. It's a way of expressing sadness, hope, joy. It's therapeutic," he said.
Phil had the old recordings sent over from America so he could continue working on the project while in the Eurobodalla.
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Technology had changed, so too music recording. The big home studio of St Louis was replaced with Phil's laptop for the same quality.
And so Phil's second album 'Long to Look' was launched on November 5 in North Batemans Bay.
![Phil Taylor and band at the launch of his new album at the Olive Tree centre, North Batemans Bay. Picture supplied. Phil Taylor and band at the launch of his new album at the Olive Tree centre, North Batemans Bay. Picture supplied.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/156570134/d913eaf9-5058-417e-863e-04ab460b2b6b.jpg/r77_0_1252_659_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
He describes the 13-song praise album as a mix of ritzy, acoustic and jazz.
The album name is derived from a Bible passage describing the salvation of God's people as a beautiful mystery - "things which angels long to look for," Phil said.
Does Phil have another album in the pipeline? To be released in 2042, perhaps.
Not yet. He wants to carry the momentum of the album launch on with a concert in Sydney, and maybe even travel to American again to perform in some of the places that so inspired him 20 years ago.
You can listen to 'Long to Look' on Spotify and Apple Music.