Please note that I use this page to promote my various projects and not just the solipsism stuff. I used to try and run several pages for the different projects, but it was a monumental pain in the arse.
Craig Murphy is a musician, composer and producer of experimental music and a multimedia artist working with abstract music videos. Having established the rising Herb Recordings imprint in his native Scotland, Murphy's own output resembles that of a musical odyssey. An obsession with Frank Zappa has seen to a fascination with experimentation and Murphy's many projects span several genres. From the mechanistic, yet poignant electronica of Solipsism to his electro-psychedelic band shoosh with Neil Carlill & Ed Drury. Murphy's distinctive sound is often abstract, yet retains a rich, melodic and emotional edge.
Solipsism ‘MK Ultra’ (promo). Been a fair old while since Mr Murphy featured in these pages, the workaholic visual / sound artist seems unable to stray past a home recording studio without being possessed of the need to nail a track or three in either of his Shoosh, ch.pm and Solipsism guises - while finding his remaining time taken in heading up Herb recordings imprint. Anyway an email received in our inbox invited us to tune into a taster cut from his currently worked techno based set soon put paid to our embarrassed silence in reporting his ever evolving and cross weaving genre bending cache of aural adventures. ‘MK Ultra’ is a fat n’ spongy slab of hyper driven mind weaving oblivion, the regimental like pulsing and precision honed pushing and shunting trip hop / technoid beats underpin a quietly hypnotic widescreen sounds cape of whirring drone swathes, cosmic swirls and an all round sense of spectral wooziness. Embraced of elements of a classic era Detroit techno scene albeit as though relocated to some distant space hub opining ominous SOS transmissions into the far reaches of the cosmic wilderness - this cerebral cutie mushrooms with a stealth like grandeur to literally bathe your listening space in something that you’d be forgiven for assuming was crafted by the collaborative hand of a secret rendezvous between 808 State and Apollo 440. That said what truly puts the icing on the cake is its busy employment of sonic sub texts running barely out of earshot in the background - like for instance the brief and subtle tropicalia flurries at approx. 4.34 in. Losing Today
Swirling synths
Picked guitar and then left.
Soundscapes of uncomfortable beauty
Pulses
Dadaist in theory and practice
Beat with no beat, you dig.
The spoken word unspoken, the synthesis of nature formed and then de-con-struct-ed.
Drone…and on. The sadness of a modulating tone and the pleasure in its repetition.
Explain.
SOUND!!!
Beautiful in its scope, majestic in its sweep yet personal and claustrophobic.
Names: Godspeed, you black Emperor. Explosions in the sky. Fennesz. Yet not quite.
An album of outstanding music. That should be heard by all fellow travellers.
Enjoy.
I did. Is This Music?
As
winter is fading away, giving way to new life and new experiences, so
too is the overall tune of everything around us. There’s something
about spring that brings out the best in people, so it’s suitable to
have music that fits this positive aura. Shoosh specialize in a strange mix of acoustic guitar, distorted synths and hopeful ambiance....With these samples of what’s to come from this trio, I’m left hopefully waiting. Not to be blown away, because that’s not what Shoosh tries to accomplish, but rather to be taken on a journey. If they are able to evoke so much day dreaming with just two songs, I can only imagine what they will do with an hour of our time. The Silent Ballet
Orpheum Circuit is a sweltering sheet of low flying beauty Igloo Mag
"Shoosh is a trio of musicians, combining guitars and
Americana-influenced songwriting with all manner of perplexing
electronic programming and treatments. 'Snake Eyes' is a little like
Sparklehorse or perhaps Benoit Pioulard - all distorted and twisted
out of shape, with a squeaky, obfuscated vocal in place to remind
you that you're listening to an actual song rather than the Fennesz-influenced
soundscape it might otherwise resemble. The vocal will almost
certainly take some getting used to in fact, but once you're
accustomed to the sheer oddness of Neil Carlill's delivery (imagine
a cross between Dose One and Mark E Smith) there's an awful lot to
like about this record - in a world crammed with electronically
treated songwriting efforts, Orpheum Circuit somehow manages to
sound like it's really out there on its own."Boomkat
The adjectives sweeping, cinematic and symphonic come to the
fore. This is music suited to the closing credits of a cathartic,
two and a half hour movie epic. Doleful piano lines, dramatic synth
washes and grandiose crescendos are the order of the day: like Eno’s
Music For Films given the Cecil B DeMille treatment.
The tracks have their individual flavours – the synthetic birds,
church bells and crickets of “Dark Sun Rising”, for example – but
the album works best as a kind of symphony in five movements. It’s
music designed for looking from a hilltop and watching the shadows
of clouds dancing across lush, rolling fields. Stirring and somehow
reassuring at the same time.
Music, Musings & Miscellany
This is downtempo, home-listening electronica, but with an
edge. Lead track “Bastardism”, a collaboration with Kingbastard, is
all steam-punk beats and abstract, cosmic synths. The ENV(itre) and
Victer Manderline remixes are cooler, mellower affairs, whereas the
charmingly named “Raped by a Woman” remix by Psychotronic is an
uncomfortable, glitchy treatment. “Organicism” comes in two
versions. The Pleq remix is the stronger, chugging and spluttering
along like an eccentric piece of machinery.
Music, Musings & Miscellany
The material's galaxial feel and trippy ambiance intensify
when distorted voices echo across the limitless expanses of deep
space, and nowhere is that epic pitch achieved more intensively than
during the title piece which unspools over ten trance-inducing
minutes (the sound is so huge, it reduces the voices that
occasionally surface to indecipherable mumbles—but the work can be
experienced just as easily on purely musical terms as an engrossing
exercise in synthetic dronescaping. If anything, its
unapologetically pure synth-based sound has more in common with
‘70s-styled ambient recordings (early Tangerine Dream, say) than a
more current release where granular static and other noise might
accompany the drones. That Alien Genome Project leaves such a strong
impression is due in part to the forceful intensity of its
presentation.
Textura
The album consists of drones, cosmic synth chords, and
disembodied, distorted vocal samples. It has echoes of Kosmische
Musik acts like (early) Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schultze as well
as their spiritual descendants such as Pete Namlook. But there are
equally nods to Stars of the Lid, Eno’s Apollo and Murcof’s Cosmos
projects. The eight tracks unfold slowly. Some are short and
fragile; others, like the title track, have a suitably cosmic
grandeur. “Hybrid”, the closing section, has a slowed down echoing
voice that has the rhythm of whale song, and sounds like the last,
fading sounds of a dying civilization. It’s quite a spooky end to a
seriously trippy suite of music.
Music Miscellany
ch.pm is the solo project of Craig Murphy, perhaps better known
as one half of electro-psychedelic outfit Shoosh. ‘Alien Genome
Project’, however, is like listening to an old-school ambient
record, where melodies shift extremely slowly. Indeed, Tangerine
Dream and Brian Eno would certainly approve of Murphy’s work.
Leonard's Lair
Shoosh present a far folksier prospect, first with the digitised
folk of 'Elastic Soil' - which avoids all that Tunng-style
folktronica business thanks to its strained and unhinged vocal - and
the rather lovely 'Come In From The Cold', another swirl of guitars,
screeching synthesis and that strangely compelling, warped voice.
Boomkat
Weird Fields is a busy boy - it feels almost like he creates
videos on weekly basis, judging from the amount of clips he's dished
up in the last few months (last time it was a promo for Pestilence
by Shoosh). This time Herb Recordings' Kingbastard is the subject:
the track used is '[ d o w n u p ]' and the video has a series of
flashing pictures, cryptic symbols and phrases. Weird Fields has
probably filled the whole thing with subliminal messages too, so who
knows what he's brainwashed us into...
Angry Ape
I remember the good old minimalist days of electronic music
videos where all you'd see was an amorphous digital blob spinning
across a swiftly tilting background. Kingbastard's latest video
seems to recall those abstract times, even though there's something
much more complex with what Chris Weeks and Weird Fields are doing
with [ downup ]. The flashing, subtle cues have a message tied
somehow to the words explore, exploit, explode, before somewhere
along the way you find yourself saying, "I love Big Brother."
Ogbetty
consuming collages depicting in the minds eye intergalactic
voyages to far flung milky ways, gloriously wide screen in stature
and vividly fulsome in texture. And while the obvious winner hand
down here is ’bastardism’ - a lushly envisaged cosmic pit stop where
shuffling statue-esque beats orbit amorously across swirling
passages of soft psych ambient blissfulness - think Biosphere
trading dialects more appreciable to the polar climes of Amon Duul
and Jean Michel Jarre - a magnificent dreamscaping delight. Though
that said our money is squarely on the monumental ’this is our tree
and were not getting out of it’ - a desirable and engaging slice of
achingly lonesome spectral beauty
Losing Today
“Crystalism” is the most direct track, coming across like an
aggressive, no nonsense Boards of Canada. Those distant synths that
hallmark previous releases are intact here, layering themselves
almost out of sync with the programmed beats, yet remaining
cohesive. “Exit Strategy” is different again, employing thick
mid-90’s beats over dripping melodies that slightly recall Wendy
Carlos’ “Clockwork Orange” phase.
Angry Ape
this five track EP is Solipsism’s most unified effort thus far.
The album pivots with the beautifully arranged epilogue “Sun Up”, an
ambient and emotional sprawl that leaves you with a warm sense of
tranquility and profound motivation to hit the Solarism replay
button.
Sonic Frontiers
Solipsism again seamlessly blends ethereal synth swells with
mechanical beat programming, to create a colliding electronic sound.
The contrast between the wistfully melodic synths and the precise,
robotic beats are a key component in this release’s sound. "At The
Beach" is, by far and away, the best track on offer here. The
beatwork seems off the pace from the gorgeous toybox chimes that
plays an integral role on this track. Almost as if it is playing
catch-up, the off-kilter pattern offers a timeless sound that
induces the mood of an Ibizan sunset.
Angry Ape
"Electricity Flows In Squares" has an nostaligic feel to it,
advancing on the themes explored by artists such as Bola, Autechre
and Bochum Welt. The pristine melodies posses a real other-worldly
quality and are perfectly contrasted by the accomplished,
mechanistic programming. It is an engaging listen that begs for an
emotional response.
Boring Machines Disturbs Sleep
Shoosh, the trio of Ed Drury, Neil Carlill and Craig Murphy, have
a different approach to their music. More guitar-based than Cheju,
Shoosh features a love-it-or-hate-it vocal style. Their track
“Elastic Soil” is predominantly guitar-based but also features some
soaring electronic textures underneath it all. Their second track,
“Come in from the Cold,” is weirder still vocally and features
shimmering electronic swirls and acoustic guitar. The first of their
tracks sounds like Bowie meets Genesis P Orridge while the second is
more like Dylan; both sound like drug-addled psychedelic folk -
uniquely blissed out weird psychedelic folk excursions.
Igloomag
Shoosh are a different proposition altogether, combining the
talents of Craig Murphy (synths, programming), multi-instrumentalist
Ed Drury and former Delicatessen frontman Neil Carlill, who provides
rather unique vocals. A starlit chime introduces “Elastic Soil” but
will not prepare the listener for the intergalactic journey they are
about to embark on. Murphy’s spectral drones provide the template
for Drury to weave a beautiful Spanish guitar arrangement atop,
while Carlill delivers his indecipherable yet strangely alluring
vocals. Spell-bindingly inventive, shoosh construct an exclusive
brand of ambient, space-folk.
Reverb Mag
Shoosh’s ghostly alluring ‘elastic soil’ is an off centred though
numbingly beautiful work of ethereal psych-ambi-folk, pining
celestial sheens, crooked and dust ridden stumbling acoustic
flamenco strums serve as deliciously spectral montages underpinning
the ether driven wandering vocal mantras - all at once hazy and
disquieting though magically omnipresent the individual parts
coalesce and caress like heavenly apparitions weaving in and out of
view imagining Animal Collective centre stage in a celestial
gunfight setting amid supernatural serenades sourced from Neil
Young’s ‘eldorado’.
Losing Today
While other shoosh compositions come across like a space-age
version of Pink Floyd, “Elastic Soil” finds them exploring a
different plain altogether. Carlill’s vocals immediately pique the
interest with its multi-tracked and warped out of shape tone. These
are cushioned by a galaxy of spectral drones and superb Spanish
guitar work to create this highly inventive piece of music.
Angry Ape
Shoosh's Elastic Soil features flamenco guitar and woozy,
processed vocals stumbling around in a sweetly acrid haze.
The Wire
Of more interest, I thought, was the music of Shoosh, a three
piece group of Ed Drury (guitars), Neil Carlill (vocals and lyrics)
and Craig Murphy (synth, programming). In 'Elastic Soil' they sound
like an electronic version of Current 93, with a strong similarity
in the vocal region. In 'Come In From The Cold' things turn even
more down and moody, with sparse electronics, ending in total
ambiance.
Vital Weekly
Shoosh is definitely more leftfield. Their two tracks explore a
psychedelic world. ‘Elastic Soil’ begins with Spanish guitar before
some warped vocals convey an evening of stoned abandon in Madrid.
Leonard's Lair
The guitars are Iberian and the wooze is warm and writhes like
animated spaghetti. It's quite a nifty little late night stoner
track, phased vox n all, would be very much at home on any number of
old Tyrannosaurus Rex albums. IS IT ANY GOOD? Yeah, it wont be
featured on a chart show near you, but that's not the point, is it?
Unpeeled
Delicate, lonesome and hitherto monolithic these somnambulant
drone-scapes swirl in frosted pirouette formations applying a
stately courtship (none more so than ‘distant star‘).....Amid the
showcase of glacial tides and sparsely drawn and effecting
minimalist washes of lilting electronic symphonies we suggest you
stop by at your first opportunity to sample the warming radiance of
the playfully orbiting oscillations of the melting ’so long good
friend’ - bit of a peach by our reckoning appealing to ’magnetic
fields’ era Jarre and Vangelis fans alike.
Losing Today
And finally....
This page isn't a shop window for your new releases, new tracks, new podcasts etc. That's what your own page is for + bulletins, blogs etc. So please don't post any of the above, as it's extremely rude and they will be marked as spam.
This is a wee freebie for every one who has not had the chance get down to La Cheetah yet. We will have a mixture of djs playing through the night, just to cater for everyone's tastes.
Our music connoisseurs will be Pro Vinylist Karim(Dress2Sweat), Andrew Ingram (Slabs Of The Tabernacle), Scott Theory(Pest Control) & the Loop Dj's.
Online Now!
