The mysterious musical entity known as FATHER MURPHY will be arriving on our shores from their Northern Italian place of origin sometime in early May. A strange group that play a form of “rock music” that resembles little else I’ve heard. I know that is a bold, and high falutin’ thing to say, but perhaps you should listen yourself first before you scoff(yes, I heard you scoff). This is drone music in many ways, a medieval feel permeating much of their latest album, ANYWAY, YOUR CHILDREN WILL DENY IT. FATHER MURPHY have managed to incorporate the feeling of dread and ominousness that Gregorian chanting and throat singing and the like bring to the table while avoiding overt use of either singing method. Organs and other keyboard instruments drone, guitars create enveloping walls of sound. The band’s tactics are simple, but what they create through layering, and voice combinations is very special and as I said before, quite unique. At times the male vocals creep, at other times it is the female vocals. Sometimes they creep and crawl together winding about one another. Intoxicating. Early Velvet Underground or something like that may be somewhere to draw a comparison to, but this is much more twisted up. They could be some Celtic pagan band whose first never released record from 500 BC has just been discovered and is now available on vinyl for the first time. But that’s silly isn’t it? And this record is not silly. It is serious, but the seriousness is never a turn off. “It is funny, it is restful, both came quickly” is built upon a relentless guitar/drum/synth? thrum, the vocals carrying on in an intensely, and somewhat threatening sing sing song manner. “Their consciousness” starts off much the same as the previously mentioned track, but after about a minute gives way to a stark synth/drum/guitar strum dirge over which “Here we are now”, and it’s variation “Now here we are” is repeated in turn by the two vocalists into infinity. This record also includes a couple of instrumental tracks which add to the strange mood, and otherworldly feel that FATHER MURPHY creates here. And then the whole thing concludes with “Don’t let yourself be hurt this time”, a spare, queerly pretty almost pop song sung by Chiara Lee, the female vocalist. This record is my first visit with FATHER MURPHY, and I’m curious to hear their older records to see where this fully developed sound world originated. Out on AAGOO Records. Keep your eyes open for this bunch playing a B.O.W. Show at an as of yet unnamed location on May 6th.
