Rising. A Requiem For Father Murphy

Gothic Gregorian chant darkness from Italian artist. Like Dead Can Dance stripped to its bones. Very minimal: strange female and male vocals sung in a ritualistic near Gregorian requiem manner. An overarching Byzantine religious tone about this makes its name sensical.

From bandcamp: “Father Murphy is the sound of the Catholic sense of Guilt. A downward spiral aiming at the bottom of the hollow, and then digging even deeper. Father Murphy over the years became one of the most mysterious and enigmatic musical entities coming out of Italy, part of that community that Simon Reynolds and Julian Cope started to call the new “Italian Occult Psychedelia”.

1) (4:45) starts slow, a drum w quiet noise, very sparse. 2) (3:47) slow drama, vocals dark 3) (4:49) chorus slow phrased almost Benedictine chants 4) (4:22) very chill atmospheric lush organ, synth 5)* (9:37) strange big drama w fem vocs, plodding synth, bizarre 6) (2:50) rainlike percussion, minimalism 7)* (3:14) lovely deep string bass bow exchanges 8) (2:02) very quiet fade in to dramatic sparse droney darkness, brief vocs. 9) (3:17) operatic fem vocs, Gregorian chant feel, minimal 10)* (1:59) big dark industrial drone, plod, vocs 11)* (10:30) minimal noise, like someone digging a grave, after 3.5 min the slow drum from track 1 returns, and male fem vocs appear w pump organ, devolves into echo feedback noise, ends cold 12)* (4:31) weird minimalist noise is “a gut wrenching field recording of maggot larvae. “For us it's really the triumphant sound of death. something that brings you back to the earth through the most natural process.” Lovely.