Peter
Murphy, storico cantante dei Bauhaus, leggendaria band
dark wave inglese, annuncia il suo ritorno, a distanza di tre anni dal
precedente Ninth, con il decimo album
della sua carriera solista, Lion, in uscita il 27 maggio per Nettwerk
Music Group.
Dopo lo scioglimento dei Bauhaus nel 1983, Peter
Murphy intraprende, due anni più tardi, una fruttuosa carriera solista,
pubblicando una serie di dischi che lo hanno coronato come uno tra i più grandi
artisti della storia del rock, a cui si aggiungono preziose collaborazioni tra
cui quella con Trent Reznor dei Nine Inch Nails e Mick Karn, ex bassista dei
Japan.
Prodotto da Youth (già al lavoro con Killing Joke e The Verve), Lion contiene 11 tracce che, in
poche parole, fanno sentire il cuore in gola, spaziando da bassi prepotenti e
crudi a suoni più armoniosi e sinfonici. In un’intervista a Billboard Murphy
descrive Lion come “a
mixture of stuff…almost like operas for the dispossessed. It's very romantic
and very deep and emotional, quite symphonic in places, but then becomes, like,
a rabble-rousing pirate sea shanty.” Un disco molto personale,
confidenziale, intimo e sofisticato. Ben tornato Peter Murphy!
Dopo
aver passato buona parte del 2013 in tour in occasione dei 35 anni dei Bauhaus con l’acclamato Mr. Moonlight Tour, Peter Murphy è pronto a tornare con il
suo nuovo progetto e un lungo tour che partirà a fine maggio in Nord America.
For the last 30 years or so, goth has been the most durable of musical genres. Loved and ridiculed in equal measure, in its refusal to die it has come to resemble any number of vampire movies where the antagonist simply cannot be stopped despite all manner of stakes, garlic and crucifixes. Yet bizarrely, as it came to mutate over the decades to cross-pollinate with any number of other genres – techno, industrial and metal have all felt the chill hand of goth resting on their shoulders – several of its key players have come to reject the genre like a parent disinheriting an errant child. The Sisters Of Mercy’s Andrew Eldritch will flee from the word with the haste of a bloodsucker making its way back to its coffin before the first rays of the rising sun, while The Cure’s Robert Smith is probably too cuddly to qualify as one despite a following that suggests otherwise. Not so Peter Murphy. The erstwhile Bauhaus vocalist – sharp of cheek and pouting of lip – is only to happy to admit to his part in goth’s formation. Combining sacrilegious and blasphemous subject matter with S&M imagery and a high sense of camp and drama, Bauhaus were one of the first bands to use punk as a launchpad to somewhere else. Their brief reign of terror lasted less than five years but the imprint they left behind is still visible to this very day.
Now based in Istanbul, Murphy has just released his ninth solo album entitled, er… Ninth. Soon to be touring the States, Murphy returns to Europe after the summer, just in time for those long evenings to start drawing in…
From your vantage point of a lifetime of experience, how do you view the younger version of yourself who was just starting out in Bauhaus?
Peter Murphy: Well, with all modesty, when I think back, when we started writing songs in that mobile classroom I knew that I’d made it already. I remember everything because I have an elephant’s memory, and my memories of our farewell show in ’83 [at Hammersmith Palais] are particularly vivid and quite personal, in a sense. Having burnt our fires around the world, I was burnt out, really.
Can you remember what the catalyst was that moved you into music?
PM: From early on, I would whistle. I was more vocal than intellectual at school. I remember always whistling on that dreary walk to school, and there was music everywhere in my Catholic school. But there was music at home, too - more vocal music in a sense, but what really grabbed me was when I watched cheesy television shows like The Golden Shot and they’d always have these visiting stars singing a song here and there. And I used to think, 'I can do that!' I don’t know where that came from, but when I was at a concert I always knew that I’d rather be onstage than being down in the audience. But there was pivotal moment when I was about 14, and we were driving home from seeing relatives. It was night time and I was nodding off on the back seat with my head in my arms, and I just shot up with a great sense of urgency and said, 'I’m going to be a singer!' And that was that. They just turned round and said, 'Right. Go back to sleep.'
How important was the high drama of Catholicism, such as Masses, to the development of Bauhaus stage act?
PM: Tangentially, [guitarist] Daniel Ash and I were the Catholics and the other two [bassist David J and drummer Kevin Haskins] were the miserable, selfish Church of England heathens. When we first started touring, Daniel and I would stay in a bed and breakfast and their parents got them hotels. It was really pathetic. Daniel and I brought the psychodrama to the band, and I would exorcise a lot of that repressed psychodrama that had been left over from Catholicism. Personally, I used to really enjoy Mass and the hymns and there was a great contemplation of the Anti-Christ. I really enjoyed it but I also wanted a shag, which is why I went into a band, I guess. My passion, really - which came out in the first album, In The Flat Field - was escaping the flat fields of the mundane; the escape from the working class ghetto of the 'jobs for life' mentally and its forced ignorance. That reflected in the Church’s idea of hierarchical supremacy where the priests would say, 'Listen to me. We mediate between you and God; you just get on with it.' There was a lot of that that came out in the music.
(ANSA) - ROMA, 7 GIU - Peter Murphy, storico cantante dei Bauhaus, band dark wave inglese, annuncia il suo ritorno con "Ninth", nono disco solista al debutto con l'etichetta Nettwerk Music Group e da oggi nei negozi. Dopo lo scioglimento dei Bauhaus nel 1983 Murphy intraprende la carriera solista, pubblicando dischi che lo hanno coronato come uno dei piu' grandi artisti della storia del rock, oltre a prestigiose collaborazioni tra cui quella con Trent Reznor dei Nine Inch Nails e Mick Karn, ex bassista dei Japan.
The day has come, 'Ninth' is finally here! Get your copy from ITUNES / AMAZON today!
This record is warmly recommended by Leo Grant.
Peter Murphy returns to the United States with special live appearances around the release of NINTH including rare in-store performances & signings! Full list of live shows and in-stores performances: Tues, June 7 New York, NY @ J&R Music World (in-store performance & signing)… RSVP Wed, June 8 New York, NY @ The Delancy... Tickets / RSVP Wed, June 15 San Diego, CA @ Casbah… Tickets / RSVP Thur, June 16 Los Angeles, CA @ Amoeba (in-store performance & signing)…INFO Fri, June 17 Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy & Harriet's… Tickets / RSVP Thur, June 23 San Francisco, CA @ Amoeba (in-store performance & signing)…INFO Fri, June 24 San Francisco, CA @ Bottom Of The Hill… Tickets / RSVP Sat, June 25 Sacramento, CA @ Boardwalk…Tickets / RSVP Sun, June 26 Costa Mesa, CA @ Detroit Bar... Tickets / RSVP Wed, June 29 Los Angeles, CA @ The Troubadour… Tickets / RSVP
"Memories fade but the scars still linger,
I cannot grow,
I cannot move,
I cannot fell my age,
The vice like grip of tension holds me fast,
Engulfed by you,
What can I do,
When history’s my cage...
Look foward to a future in the past".
