Father Murphy

Father Murphy

Croce

Flenser

Father Murphy, one of the most mysterious and enigmatic musical entities to emerge from Italy in recent years, presents their fifth full-length via The Flenser. This dark psychedelic / industrial cabaret is a religion-themed concept album titled Croce (“Cross” in Italian), one side representing suffering and sacrifice and the flip reflecting what comes after—the end of suffering, resurrection, or perhaps oblivion. The work was recorded by John Dieterich in Albuquerque, NM, and mixed by Greg Saunier.  From the shadowy atmospheres of Croce spring forth unexpected blurts of impossibly catchy noise pop, at times operatic like some twisted musical detailing the trials and tribulation of the crucifixion. Male and female vocals by Freddie Murphy and Chiara Lee intertwine over distorted blasts of guitar crunch, anchored by stuttering, homebuilt percussion. This sound is textural and nuanced yet noisy and chaotic, carefully sculpted into jagged shards of fragmented pop.  A-side closer “In Solitude” is an appropriately dour slab of murky miserablism that sounds like a slow sonic death, a haunting dirge that dissolves into that ineffable space between the record’s two sides; the netherworld, the afterlife, Purgatory. But Father Murphy erupts from this stygian blackness with the second half of Croce—the light to the A-side’s dark. “Long May We Continue” retains a doom-like approach at first, stringing a field of metallic shimmer and junkyard percussion together into a spare framework over which dramatic male vocals soar. The female counterpart responds like some demonic Greek chorus, delivering a sense...

Father Murphy

9 Heretical Views

Aagoo

***With the darkly celestial sounds of FATHER MURPHY’s spring 2012 album Anyway, Your Children Will Deny It still fresh in our minds, we put ten of the Italian psychedelic pop trio’s songs into the hands of our favorite experimental artists. The results of these sonic foreign exchanges are 11 visionary reinterpretations of Father Murphy’s already kaleidoscopic tunes. They comprise a monumental artifact of the avant-noise world of 2013. The Father Murphy Anyway, Your Children Will Deny It Remix Series is released in two parts—The 7” features INDIAN JEWELRY’s reworking of “His Face Showed No Distortions” and PHILIPPE PETIT’s mix of “Diggin the Bottom of the Hollow.” The LP contains a remix of every song on the album. The artists include: BLACK DICE, HAPPY NEW YEAR, EMA, MOCK THE ZUMA, SIC ALPS, THULEBASEN, W.H.I.T.E, YVETTE and ZULUS.