Review & Interview: Father Murphy - RISING A Requiem For Father Murphy

This is a bit of a bittersweet post for me for it marks the end of a band that I have loved and admired for some years now but this ending is celebrated by a record that may be amongst their very best. On a personal level the Father Murphy, in particular Freddie, have been a source of support in a couple of projects close to my heart; a few years ago I was lucky enough to have a lengthy article published in Shindig magazine which revolved around the burgeoning Italian Occult Psychedelic scene and the debt that that scene owed to the Giallo soundtracks of the seventies....Father Murphy were one of the bands kind enough to give me their thoughts and, in their case, erudite comments on the premise. Sometime after I curated / compiled my own charity compilation (proceeds going to cancer research) and Father Murphy were one of the first to get back and donate a track...something for which I will always be grateful. I am also very grateful for Freddie sparing some valuable time during recent dates to answer a few questions about the album, the band, Italian Occult Psychedelia and the future.

For those who have never had the good fortune to have heard Father Murphy, they are a band rooted in ritual and religion, a music that is fiercely Italian and yet calls out to everyone. The band describe the music as the "sound of the Catholic sense of Guilt. A downward spiral aiming at the bottom of the hollow, and then digging even deeper." Variously described as Italian Occult Psychedelic, post-industrial, ritualistic avantfolk.....whetever, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that they have left an indelible mark on the leftfield music scene. It is music that can be harrowing and yet joyous at times, the chiaroscuro of light and dark playing with the listener's emotions. Don't get me wrong, it's not always an easy listen but it always satisfying and always a rollercoaster of guilt ridden creativity and imagery rich apostasies. The artful mix of warped chamber music, foreboding drones and clattering percussion is enigmatic, intriguing and damned exhilarating.

And so to 'RISING...' with all the conflicting emotions therein. Released last month on Avant! Records and Ramp Local in the States, the album sees Freddie and Chiara 'kill off' the titular Father Murphy, the protagonist of their recent albums which have told the story of his rise and subsequent fall into heresy. Musically it is the band at the height of their powers (going out with a bang!), from the sepulchral drum that heralds in the opener 'Introit' through to the crackling of a funeral pyre in the closer ' Libera Me' and a solitary bell that marks the final demise of Father Murphy, it is a musical mass for the dead and full of that twisted imagery and unique musical tropes that made Father Murphy the band they are...sorry...were. It is an album that hangs in the netherworld twixt music and religious ritual... that dark area, illuminated by guttering candles where hidden sins are brought to the fore and are judged. I am not going to give 'RISING..' my normal track-by-track breakdown for 1 very good reason: the album should be considered as a whole...it is not a collection of tracks put together but rather a linear narrative, a book is not reviewed on a chapter by chapter basis and so I will not do so for this. What I will say, however, is that it is possibly the duo's best album. It would seem that they were determined to see Father Murphy (the band and the character) taken to his final destination with a work of solemnity and grace while retaining a visceral power that hits on an emotional level....or maybe that's just me being maudlin at the end of a great band? 'RISING..' by any measure, is a masterpiece and acts as a suitable and moving eulogy to one of the most inventive and thought provoking bands that I have ever had the good fortune to hear. The album is available from the Avant! Records webstore here or the Ramp Local webstore here on double vinyl (and FYI, it's 45rpm!)



As I mentioned earlier, Freddie from the band was kind enough to spare some time to answer some questions:

Let's get the big question out of the way first.......Father Murphy is no more....what prompted this?

We always wanted our music to express the idea of an end to come, the idea that everything ends. We also always thought about this band as a project, with a beginning and an end so both C.Lee and I kept our eyes wide open in order to recognize the sings of said end to come.

When we started thinking that the obvious step after the Cross (reached by our character at the end of the album Croce) was for us to sing a mass for the dead, we knew that it was the sign we were waiting for. A final album, to be composed starting from knowing that it was going to be the final one, so to better express feelings related to the end. We strongly believe that once you reach the end of the words you don't have to fight it, but simply sit back in silence. With Rising we reached our natural end, so it's now our tun to sit back and enjoy the silence.

The new album, 'Rising: A Requiem For Father Murphy' - was it always going to be the farewell album or has it morphed into such following the decision to split?

After recording Croce, we started feeling like it was time to face the idea of working on a requiem. Once we started getting into the idea, we understood that the only way to make it happen was for the album to be the final one. We felt like it was the only way to be honest and sincere, as the best way to express feelings of an end to come.

Of late 'Father Murphy' the character seems to have become an allegory for some deep personal journey for you guys...is this a fair comment? and will he [Father Murphy] return in another guise in the future.

I'm pretty sure nor C. Lee nor myself will allow Father Murphy any chance to resurrect... this trick has already been used, and we can all see the results...

For sure the journey of FM as character, even if being an allegory of our own journey, allowed us to go possibly deeper into ourselves, digging out layers and layers of sounds/emotions/atmosphere that kept echoing from the allegory to our personal lives, creating even some confusion sometimes. Father Murphy's journey is much more dramatic than ours will always be, but at the same time we tried to be honest in expressing some feelings, so we allowed ourselves to go as low as we could go into ourselves, into what we like to call the black tar we need to spit in order to be better people.

That's also why I like to say we grew up thanks to Father Murphy, we became adults, we actually became the human beings that we are now thanks to FM's journey.

The lyrical content of your songs have always seemed to have been acutely personal, almost as if you have bared your soul to the world. This must become emotionally draining?

Even if always trying to be as sincere as possible we always kept our distance from the character of Father Murphy; our souls are well hidden into ourselves, what we allow to show is the result of a dramatization of their outcome, as if Father Murphy was a distopian world we created. You live and feel what you create, but when you create it it doens't belong to you any longer, it starts its own life, it becomes a paradigma, a parable; if too personal it could become much more boring and too ego centered.

The concept of pain and suffering have always been forefront in the music - is this a reflection of you and your experiences or more of an existential expression of humanity?

I think both, with our personal experiences being only a trigger, but with a deeper root into an expression of humanity. I think sometimes of Pain as of a light giving clarity to the journey, when you feel for real your limits, the concept itself of a signal that is there to communicate something is possibly wrong. Now, wrong is not the right term, as Pain can be the trigger for deciding to dig a bit deeper on a problem, in order to solve it. It's yet an expression of our body/mind, so instead of fighting it, why not looking more into it?

I think it's fair to say that FM have been one of the flag bearers for the Italian Occult Psychedelia scene and certainly one that has been responsible for spreading the word outside of Italy....do you see this as a 'legacy' you leave behind as a band?

I don't know, I think it's more for other people to say, but if I had to give you my impression, I like to think of Father Murphy's role toward the IOP as the one William Burroughs had with the entire Beat Generation experience. A satellite, on its own, but yet with a strong relationship to the core of it,

What would you say is the highlight of the Father Murphy journey?

In a sort of weird self celebration, I think I would say the fact that we decided to end it, recognizing the time has come. We spent the last 9 years always on the road, and I could easily see us doing that yet for ages, but you have sometimes to be able to step back and see when it's time to call it a day. Willing to always be in charge, there's nothing more powerful than deciding your own end, not only scheduling it, but also taking care of all the celebrations.

If someone were to ask what is the Father Murphy sound, how would you describe it and which track from your discography typifies the best?

I think that description we started to use from around 2012 and onward, the sound of Catholic Guilt is pretty much the best way to describe at least the idea we had on mind; the complexity of the different levels of said Guilt, of the different textures that sonically could be expressed somehow lead us on a (re)search that made each of our releases pretty much diverse from the one before.

Even if Rising is different, being a mass for the dead, and express a different urge, I think that "Agnus Dei" quite typifies our sonic journey. Another track that both Chiara and I very much feel is "You got worry" from "No room for the weak" EP.



Do you have any plans moving forward or just gonna kick back and see what happens?

Having spent so much to build our own imagery, we would be very happy to have the chance now to work writing music to score other people's imagery, being that sounds for movies, installations, theatre...

We're in fact already working on the soundtrack for "Cadence" the first feature film by Luca Dipierro (the person that throughout the years conceived and realized a pentalogy of videoclips for our music, to the point that if we think of images behind our music we now see Luca's). It's an ambitious project, a feature animation entirely filmed in stop motion with marionettes made of paper and old book cloth. We're writing and recording the music together with the images, so that images influence the music and viceversa, giving Luca even the chance to edit the images following the rhythm, the inner cadence of the music.