Father
Murphy is the sound of the Catholic sense of Guilt.
A
downward spiral aiming at the bottom of the hollow, and then digging
even deeper.
After
having furiously performed all over Europe, toured North America with
Deerhoof, Dirty Beaches and Xiu Xiu, been praised by the Archdruid
Julian Cope, among lots of others, the latest installment of their
unique sonic saga was a concept EP on Failure; like the previous
record (“Anyway, your children will deny it” among the best 50
albums of 2012 for Rock-a-Rolla Magazine) the new piece was mixed and
produced by Deerhoof's Greg Saunier.
A
new album, Croce (Italian for Cross), recorded by Deerhoof's John
Dieterich in New Mexico during the band extensive 2014 US tours, and
mixed by Greg Saunier, will then be released next March (soon more
details about it). Father Murphy, with three
albums and a plethora of EPs and limited releases, over the years
became one of the most mysterious and enigmatic musical entities
coming out of Italy, part of that community that Simon Reynolds
started to call the new “Italian Occult Psychedelia”.
some PRESS
When
I played a non-band set in Oakland, California, opening for the
Italian band Father Murphy, they completely floored me. I had never
heard of them until then, but their album And He Told Us Not To Turn
to the Sun packs some of the most original, beautiful music I'd heard
in a long time – think eerily spacious songs with strange yet
perfect arrangements. And such nice people! I'm a huge fan –
John Dieterich (Deerhoof) as
interviewed by The
Independent
A
mix of Monty Python and a lurid low-budget Italian horror film comes
to mind as you listen to the clanging riffs and distressed wails of
Turin outfit
Father Murphy... The floridly prog-gothic atmosphere – sinister
church organ, shuddering guitars, black mass chants – grows oddly
beguiling as the album continues. Suspension of disbelief is
required, but the effort doesn’t go unrewarded - Ludovic
Hunter-Tilney, Financial
Times
Italy’s
fabulously lawless organ-guitar-drums trio Father Murphy, who have –
with their colossal new album Anyway
Your Children Will Deny It
– delivered a disc of exhilarating vocal harmonies, low church
organ themes, and flipped out heathen tantrums all exquisitely staged
and performed with that same theatrical drama as early This Heat or
JA Caesar... Released on Aagoo Records, this is a haunting and superb
work that you really must check out- Julian
Cope, Head
Heritage
The
dead-eyed chants, keyboard drones and bone-dry rhytms of Italian
Father Murphy's second album conjure up a funereal atmosphere
somewhere between homemade Morricone and toytown Goblin... That
ol'devil Dario would surely approve - Joseph
Stannard, The
Wire
Father
Murphy delve further into the prog horror sound of 2008 …And
He told us to turn to the Sun,
with a poundling Gialloesque score that suggests a band who've
studied Messiaen's Messe de la Pentecote alongside Os Mutantes and
spotted a deep and true connection - MOJO
It
is no surprise that Julian Cope is a big fan of this eccentric
Italian trio, their second albun sounds genuinly gothic but somehow
manages to invoke other disparate influences – John
Lewis, Uncut
Close
spiritual cousins of Kayo Dot, they make three instruments sound like
a much larger ensemble and make meticulously structured composition
seem like spontaneous abstract improvisation. Impressive but
mightmarish, like a beautifully rendered self-portrait splattered
with blood and self-loathing. - Matt
Evans, ROCK'AROLLA
After
their really rather glorious debut it is reassuring to see that this
strange Italian troupe have lost none of their experimental
verve...If you've got an open mind then you might just discover a new
favourite band - Alex
Deller, ROCKSOUND
From
the harbingers of occultism and eroticism lifted from their nation's
giallo tradition, to their theatrically adopted pseudo-religious
personas (unless Murphy's a real-life 'padre', in which case I can
only beg his forgiveness), this Italian group are a 'cult' band in
every sense of the word.
- Tristan
Bath, THE
QUIETUS
Recently
watching the 1974 "classic" Nude for Satan confirmed that
A: Italian art can often be simultaneously Catholic and subversive
and B: they make music that's fantastically fucked up... There are
elements of Michael Gira's shabby grandeur crossed with the
improvised drum racket of My Cat is an Alien. Their guitars seem
infected with distortion and the percussion blends rowing rhythms
with sea spray cymbals. The whole procession keeps shifting focus so
that you can't be sure if they are winking or wincing - Eric
Hill, EXCLAIM!
The
Italian rock renaissance of the 21st century — at least in some
corners — continues with the work of Father Murphy, as aggressively
outré as early Jennifer Gentle, say, but with their own distinct
style, twisted stop-start chants and clatter instead of bizarrely
winsome sparkles... Father Murphy are well on their way to
establishing their own solid reputation for an intriguing listen. -
Ned
Raggett, All
Music Guide
I'll
put an extra shilling in the collection plate if Reverend freddie
Murphy has been ordained.
There's
chanting and banging and bells-a-plenty, a peculiar hymnal to the art
of noise.
Throughouth,
the percussions, strangulated sounds, epic songstitles and conceptual
doom as if the world's faiths are administering the last rites over
the rattlin' bones of Liars.
If
the papists hear this, there'll be excommunication for Reverend Fred.
Amen
to that - Luke
Turner, NME
Where
to start? Highly recommended, we don’t know how to tell you about
it... wonderful...
- The
Organ Magazine
Early
Velvet Underground or something like that may be somewhere to draw a
comparison to, but this is much more twisted up -
Boston Hassle
This
surprisingly normal looking three-piece does a pretty good job of not
sounding quite like anyone else. Even better, it’s occasionally
hard to tell what instruments or electronics are being used to
produce the sounds on Anyway
your children will deny it…
(although
online evidence suggests a fairly simple guitar/keyboards/drums
line-up). Even, even better, this album is among the select breed of
long-players that are actually short enough to play at 45RPM -
Bubblegum
cage III
If
it were a canned pasta meal it would be a tasty bowl of Berthold
Brechts’ Spaghetti Western-Styled Dirge-ee-Oh’s -
Craig
Gilbert, Verbicide
Magazine
Compliments
to Michael Gira for pointing Dream Magazine in the direction of this
intriguing Italian psychedelic outfit…
This is definitely a band to keep an eye and ear open for. -George
Parsons,
Dream Magazine
