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.”
These days, we seem to live our lives at high speed. In an ideal world, we’d all like to take the time to smell the roses, as the old saying goes. With this idea in mind, I ventured back, tentatively, into the murky depths of the Red Guitar Music inbox after a much-needed break (a break that would stretch to nearly a year, but that’s a whole other story). I found myself drawn to a small, unassuming (in a good way) release by a folk duo from Kent. Simone Lincoln and Matt Evans comprise Paper Verses, and ‘Life Lines’ is their debut EP.