MURPHNICK – THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS NICK MURPHY – RELEASES NEW ALBUM STRANGE RIDE

Strange Ride straddles the gulf between Americana and English psych dreamy folk rock from the early 1970s. It ranges from 3-part harmonies to explosive dynamics to heart-breaking intimate moments.

Strange Ride will be launched at the Northcote Social Club on the afternoon of Saturday April 29.

 Murphnick will perform with a 5-piece band featuring members of such bands as Frente!, Machine Translations, The Minibikes, Claire Bowditch, Telecaster Diaries Band, The Vandas and Private Stash.  Expect other surprise guests as well!!!  

Special guests will be Sand Brothers, featuring Greg Walker (Machine Translations) and Rick Sands (The Night Party) along with Pete Cook (Yamamoto), Din Roberts (Kutcha Edwards Band) and Glen Scarlett (Oak).

Tickets for the launch are now available here

Cheersquad Records & Tapes is thrilled to present Strange Ride, the new album by Murphnick, the artist formerly known as NIck Murphy. The album follows the release of the single “Fakin’ It”, which tells the unfortunate story of what happened to Nick’s life in music in 2016, when the artist formerly known a Chet Faker reverted to his birth name, which also happens to be Nick Murphy. 

Says Nick, “This is lyrically the most obvious song on the album, describing my experience when Chet Faker changed his name back to Nick Murphy. He originally became Chet because of me, friends and fans of his were attending my shows, seeing the wrong Nick. His transition back to being NM came with a big publicity push, online and on the street. He was everywhere, images of him were next to my songs online, I had been removed from a famous online music platform and legal options were limited. I was lost to the determinations of dominant search engines, no one could find me.”

Hence, Nick Murphy became Murphnick, and this story is the inspiration for “Fakin It”.

Read the lyrics to “Fakin’ It” here.
 Before releasing his debut solo album, Breaking The Light in 2006, Nick Murphy had firmly established his reputation as a key founding member and songwriter for Melbourne pop psych outfit, The Anyones, who toured the US and Australia on the back of two highly acclaimed and internationally released albums with the likes of The Killers, The Vines, Jet, Sloan, Morrissey, The Music, Youth Group, Dallas Crane, You Am I, Even and more. 

Nick released a second record, What’s In Your Mind? in 2011. Both records received wide critical acclaim, received lots of airplay on ABC community radio as well as TV shows such as Home & Away, Neighbours and Tripping Over. Meanwhile, Nick’s solo bands toured the country with such local heroes as Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males, The Gin Club, Even, Ross McLennan and The New World Orchestra, Screamfeeder & 78 Saab. 

After releasing What’s In Your Mind?, Nick Murphy accepted a number of offers to be the hired gun in numerous Melbourne original, tribute and cover bands, helping out various buddies including Chris Altmann, Mia Dyson, Luke Sinclair, Ben Mason, Liz Stringer, Ross McLennan, Davey Lane, Ash Naylor and Suzannah Espie.  Playing with this incredible range of musos at different times, Nick found himself straddling the sounds coming from both sides of the Atlantic, both Americana and English rock.  By 2017 Nick had a big swag of tunes demoed and ready to record and Marcel Borrack & Tim Harvey were the best team for the job.  The initial drum sessions were completed in drummer, Al Barden’s basement, engineered by Marcel.  Later sessions were recorded at Pow Wow, the studio run by Marcel and Tim.   

After the intimate, singer-songwriter album What’s In Your Mind? (reminiscent of Nick Drake and Elliott Smith) Nick’s role in these different amazing bands inspired him to get back to recording something that sounded like a rock band.  Drifting back to listening to much more Americana music, Nick was writing songs heavily influenced by country rock, folk and soul.  A second big batch of songs came from Nick’s love of more European sounds, as well as daydreamy cinematic soundscapes.  After culling and selecting the best, the final collection of material was an eclectic group of tunes with a prevailing sound of psychedelia and the early ’70s.  The other theme which unites Nick’s material right from the beginning of his recording career is a love of melody and vocal harmonies, and Strange Ride is no exception. 

Nick’s lyrics in these songs tells stories of sad and desperate love, feelings of loss and abandonment on suburban trains and in bedrooms, espionage tales of disappearing friends who turned out to be someone completely unexpected, the tragic experience of loss of identity when someone colonises your name, as well as yearning for childhood dreams. 

Whilst stamping his own distinctive sound upon the material, Nick’s tragic obsession with this early ’70s era can be heard loud and clear throughout the album and lots of iconic references are apparent, such as Draft Morning & Wasn’t Born To Follow by The Byrds and Moonlight Mile, Winter, 100 Years Ago and Shine A Light by The Stones, Yer Blues by The Beatles, Moonage Daydream by Bowie, Everybody’s Talkin’ by Fred Neil, Theme to Rosemary’s Baby, Should I Take You Home by Sunny & The Sunliners, Didn’t I Blow Your Mind by The Delfonics, Marquee Moon by Television, Rattled By The Rush by Pavement, Down By The River and Cortez The Killer by Neil Young.  

Incredible contributions from some of Melbourne’s finest musos has to be acknowledged, adding textures and colour which have elevated the album to another level. These include cello by Clara Schutz, violin by Ewan Baker, piano by Stevie Hesketh, Chris Altmann and Marcel Borrack, bowed double bass by Ross McLennan, trumpet by Yianni Rowlands, alto sax by Gideon Brazil, and beautiful harmonies and backing vocals from Violet Kelly, Jeff Samin, Mandy Kerr, Ben Mason and Tim Harvey.  

Praise for Nick Murphy aka Murphnick:

“(Murphy) has the melodic and instrumental gifts to match his transistor radio dreams and a voice that is pure enough to sing multiple rings around them” – The Age 

Strange Ride Album Launch – Friday April 29 (afternoon) at the Northcote Social Club
With special guests Sand Brothers. 
Tickets now available here