(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
Peter Murphy had been the singer of Bauhaus, one of the leading dark-punk bands. With Mick Karn of Japan, he formed Dali's Car, whose The Waking Hour (Beggars Banquet, 1984) is an experiment as ambitious as it is monotonous.
Murphy began his solo career with Should The World Fail To Fall Apart (Beggars Banquet, 1986), which included Blue Heart (though it became more famous for its covers), and Love Hysteria (Beggars Banquet, 1988), which included All Night Long and the seductive pop of Indigo Eyes. The songs are arranged by various multi-instrumentalists, but they stand out mostly for their pretension and pomposity (and poor imitations of David Bowie and Iggy Pop).
Murphy found a more sincere vocation with Deep (Beggars Banquet, 1989), a collection of "orchestral" songs like Cuts You Up (the song that made him famous) and Marlene Dietrich's Favourite Poem, as well as dance tracks like Line Between The Devil's Teeth and Roll Call. The transition from dark gothic to electronic ballad was complete.
The adult pop of Holy Smoke (Beggars Banquet, 1992) is not very different from that of many mainstream singers, although the romantic midtempo of Hit Song carries just enough decadence to make it distinctive. Drop The Sweetest Drop picks up the torch from Cuts You Up. With this work dripping with hot blood, Murphy delivers the best possible gift to the crowd of vampires eagerly following his every release.
Murphy had not lost his appetite for experimentation and treated himself to another luxurious interlude, Cascade (Beggars Banquet, 1995), his most electronic album since Dali's Car and perhaps also his best. The most ambient track, Cascade, and the most digitally decorated one, Subway, are taken from Paul Statens ballets. Producer Pascal Gabriel and guitarist Michael Brook made essential contributions to the arrangements. The experiments range from the tribal pulse of Huuvola to the waves of synthesizers and Hawaiian guitars in Gliding Like A Whale. Where Murphys hand is most recognizable is in his stubborn attempt to create another Cuts You Up, this time with Scarlet Thing In You, and in the typical lull of Ill Fall With Your Knife.
Like Frank Sinatra and Ozzie Osborne before him, Murphy is by now above all a voice, the quintessential gothic voice, regardless of what he is singing or the music that accompanies him.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
Wild Birds (Beggars Banquet) is an anthology of the years betwee
1985 and 1995.
Dust (Metropolis, 2002) is possibly his most accomplished and certainly
his most ambitious work. Aiming at wedding western and middle-eastern
traditions,
Murphy and his collaborators (notably Michael Brook) crafted nine lengthy, lush,
mesmerizing, trance-oriented psalms (Your Face, Girl Child Aglow).
The albums also includes two new versions of Murphy's old classics
My Last Two Weeks and Subway.
Later albums include:
Unshattered
(2004),
Ninth
(2011),
Lion
(2014),
Silver Shade
(2025).
