PRAISE

“Based in Los Angeles, a prolific songwriter, composer, and performer; Murphy presents his latest masterful instrumental opus Seven Crows: Secrets of Navigation. This 8-song cycle of layered violin compositions melds artfully nuanced plucked rhythmic figures, lyrical phrasing, and shimmering sustained lines, all refracted by reverbs, echoes, and modulation pedals.

Touching on the varied terrain Murphy has explored in the past, Secrets of Navigation takes listeners into areas of high intrigue and suspense, as on the eerie “Last Letter from Orson Welles,” and to gulfs of vast space as on the aptly titled “Nightsong.” But you’re just as likely to find yourself in a bustling North African souq, as on “Chamoru” or “Ancient Ways.” 

Or, perhaps you’ll arrive in the artsy Southwest enclave of Bisbee, Arizona, where Murphy tracked these ambient violin elegies with producer Dan Simonis. While violin is the only instrument being played, don’t be surprised if you hear echoes of kalimba, pipe organ, birdsong, bagpipes, vintage synthesizers, or Miles Davis’ wah-wah trumpet warbles coming from that fiddle. Like fellow violin iconoclasts Warren Ellis (The Dirty Three) and Lisa Molinaro (Modest Mouse), Murphy travels with a supernatural violin in that beat-up, brooding black case. Who knows what you’ll find in there, or where it will take you. “