Nick Murphy
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Nick Murphy

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For his second album, Nick Murphy started writing what he describes as “band songs”. Within a short period, however, Murphy realised his songwriting was heading in a different direction.

For his second album, Nick Murphy started writing what he describes as “band songs”. Within a short period, however, Murphy realised his songwriting was heading in a different direction. He took stock, cut the band songs from the nascent album’s songlist, and decided to concentrate on the folk-psych aesthetic that seemed to be emerging. “As the album went on I ended up dropping a lot of the ‘band’ songs, and went with the more mellow songs,” Murphy confirms of What’s In Your Mind . “The songs were turning into psych-folk, which is reflected in the wanky bio that I put out with the record,” he laughs.

Before embarking on a solo career in 2005 Murphy had enjoyed a level of success with his band The Anyones. “We toured the ‘States, played a bunch of festivals and had a number of high profile support gigs,” he recalls. With a publishing deal under his belt, and enough experience in the music industry to give him a competitive edge beyond the average solo artist, Murphy released his debut record, Breaking The Light in 2005. “We were lucky enough to be picked up by community radio and get some good reviews,” Murphy remembers. “Because I’m with Mushroom publishing, they got my songs on television shows like Neighbours and Home & Away, which was another source of income,” he adds.

The decision to leave his band behind and pursue a solo career came naturally. “These days it seems like everyone is doing it – guys like Gareth Liddiard, Ben Salter from The Gin Club,” Murphy says. “I think you can get to the point where creatively you want to be on your own. The parameters of being in a band are good, but they can also be stifling.”

Murphy’s early solo material was written contemporaneously with tracks for The Anyones, with the solo tracks offering a different perspective to Murphy’s group compositions. “My solo material reflected a wider perspective,” he admits. “I was able to branch out and explore the singer-songwriter thing.”

The “wanky bio” Murphy refers to for What’s In Your Mind derived from a story promulgated by American act Bon Iver, in which Bon Iver protagonist Justin Vernon claimed to have been inspired by a vivid dream experience. Murphy invokes his own variation on the theme, with tongue firmly in cheek, of course. “I tried to do a pisstake on that, but it probably sounds like I’m being a bit of a dickhead,” he laughs. Murphy admits, however, that he’s had an inspiring dream of sorts. “I did have this dream when I was on a beach and there was a boat coming in, and on the boat were all these great artists, like Brian Wilson, Neil Young, Steve Malkmus, all singing together,” Murphy grins.

Dreams aside, Murphy’s new album is very much in the folk-psych style, with flashes of Mamas And The Papas, The Lovin’ Spoonful and Buffalo Springfield. Murphy nominates the aforementioned Bon Iver, My Morning Jacket, Flaming Lips, Ariel Pink and Crayon Fields as artists who were on high rotation during the conception and recording of What’s In Your Mind. Notwithstanding the folk aspect of the record, Murphy doesn’t offer any claims to writing folk stories. “That’s an interesting question,” he reflects. “I haven’t thought about that a lot. I suppose it’s probably just a sound for me. For me it’s about listening to music without listening to what the artist is saying,” he figures. “I’m not a writer of folk tales like Gareth Liddiard. I’m more of a song guy than a storyteller. I tend to get more melodies in my head rather than stories.”

To record the album Murphy solicited interest from a range of supporting players, including Susannah Espie and Chris Altmann. Recording the record in his own space offered Murphy the level of creative control he desired. “For me home recording gives great scope – it’s like a blank slate,” he states. In his live guise Murphy is joined by Jeff Samin, Dave Rose and Chris Baker. “There’s a fair amount of instrument swapping when we play live,” he points out, and playing live also offers Murphy and his band the opportunity to explore the psychedelic element intrinsic to his new material. “There’s two or three songs where we use guitar delay and tremlo and we wig out,” Murphy grins. “An old guy came up to us recently and said he really liked our wig outs. It’s ‘strange but beautiful’ – we’re interested in exploring that part of the music more.”

In the future Murphy plans to revisit the discarded tracks from What’s In Your Mind with a view to putting them out eventually on an album. “The future is more of the same, but hopefully it won’t take as long to complete another album,” Murphy says. In a city such as Melbourne, the singer-songwriter appreciates that it’s an effort just to be heard. “There is so much great music out there,” Murphy smiles. “I feel like I’m swimming in this ocean of fantastic music!” he laughs.

NICK MURPHY launches his swish new album What’s In Your Mind (out now through Other Tongues) at The East Brunswick Club this Friday October 29, with support from the ever-mysterious Machine Translations and Cameras. Tickets at the door.