Molly Murphy - Tigers In Your Backyard (Nocturnal Edition)
A new name to me, but based on the new EP, ‘Tigers In Your Backyard (Nocturnal Edition)’, Molly Murphy is one to watch. Initially, Molly embarked on a promising college career as a double Film and English Major pursuing a career in screenwriting but left all that behind to form a band (as you do). Murphy’s latest release finds the singer-songwriter adding a modern sheen to her traditional Celtic roots.
Photography by Rachel Pruett
The five-track EP (an expansion of the original Tigers release) is overflowing with lush instrumentation, glorious harmonies and impressive songcraft. Molly and co-producer Shaun Livingston layer her versatile voice to create wonderful harmonies as the perfect accompaniment to the predominately acoustic instrumentation, with Holly Odell’s fiddle to the fore throughout. Highlights abound, but ‘Ahead of the Storm’ is just beautiful, positively shimmering if such a thing is possible. Murphy claims the likes of Annie Lennox, The Corrs and Joni Mitchell as influences and speaking of The Corrs, they should give ‘Just The Moon’ a very serious listen as it would be perfect for them.
‘Tigers In Your Backyard (Nocturnal Edition)’ is streaming in all the usual places and comes highly recommended.
“I had written a collection of songs that seemed to thread together because of the natural and whimsical lyrical imagery. I knew that I wanted these songs produced in a style I called “Celtic Flower Power,” which blended together traditional Irish music with 60’s and 70’s inspired folk. After I released the first three songs off of this EP, I began work on the B-Side, which added two new tracks. The two new songs had a darker feel to them and featured nighttime imagery, so it fit with the cyclical and natural themes of the EP to make this the “after-dark” side and call it the “Nocturnal Version.”
One of the positive aspects of running Red Guitar Music is that you encounter all manner of different musical genres that you wouldn’t necessarily find on your own. The RGM Inbox is positively overflowing with the good, the bad and, yes, the ugly (although something we find unlistenable is probably the best thing in the world to someone). One example that falls squarely in the good category of pleasant surprises is The Happy Couple, discovered on a recent visit to London’s Green Note, where the duo opened for Dimple Discs labelmate Kelsey Michael.