Phil Reynolds has been playing in bands for more years than he’d like to admit – including Suicide Highlife (the first Manx indie band to release a single with 1988’s “McCarthyville” e.p.) and Colon, who achieved the honour of recording a session for Radio 1’s John Peel.
It wasn’t until 2011, though, that he started writing songs on his own, influenced by bands like Guided by Voices, Teenage Fanclub and the more harmony-laden side of fuzzy indiepop.
In 2012, he released his home-recorded debut album, “If my feet were fingers, I’d stab you in the eye” to general indifference but a nontheless healthy dose of self-satisfaction. It was shortly after this that Kieran Ball, who’d recently joined Postcode, announced that he intended to form a band so Phil could take the songs out to live audiences. With the help of most of the rest of Postcode (Marie Reynolds, Mikie Daugherty and Jonny Peacock), Phil Reynolds and the Dearly Departed were born.
Since then, they’ve played regularly on the Island on both pub and festival stages and Phil has released two more e.p.s, 2015’s “The end of affection” (as Phil Reynolds and the Indigo Children) and 2017’s “White Claw” (as Phil Reynolds and the Uncertain Futures), both on local imprint Small Bear Records
https://philandthedead.bandcamp.com/track/close-as-stars
https://philandthedead.bandcamp.com/track/this-is-how-it-ends
https://philreynoldsandtheindigochildren.bandcamp.com/track/brighter-days