Gather by the River, Later.

 

Revelator Orchestra Pic - M.D.M. 2013

The River wasn’t telling

Weird, Cool, Majestic, Dark, Brooding, Intense.

And that’s only Peter.

These are words that are bandied about regarding The Revelator Orchestra and include an inspired quote from a   Hot Press reviewer (writing out of his skin) who opined –

-          “the end of the world news, narrated by the preacher from the black lagoon, scored by Aphex Twin’s evil siblings and directed by Hieronymus Bosch

Murphy is the hippest dude in the room, in black - with earrings, skull rings, and an intensity that nails your boots to the floor.  

 His debut novel   - John The Revelator  -  blew the knickers off middle aged madams in book clubs up and down the country with its dark savagery, it’s tales of masturbation and madness, and voiding ones bowels on the altar of a Church.

There are no sacred cows here.

He shot them in the second book.

Kill your babies.

In the blood and excrement, a dark narrative unfolds -  that stuns and amuses in equal measure  and leaves one unsettled yet rejoicing for its  anti-hero John, and his redemption -  hefting the ailing body of his dying Mother through the unknowing  streets of a small Irish Town.

How do you follow that?

Oh, I dunno.

 Maybe by writing a book based on actual events about men walking into water to drown.

And so comes “Shall we gather by the River”

It is the inspiration for “The Brotherhood of the Flood” the second album from The Revelator Orchestra.

Murphy is the kind of guy that knows his way around a drum kit, having been a founder member of Thrupenny Opera, The Tulips  and Grasshopper while simultaneously establishing himself as Contributing Editor to Hot Press magazine, and one of Irelands foremost Music & Arts writers, popping up on “The View” on a regular basis -  sporting a succession of  ever more outrageous  Barnet and Beard combinations, interviewing Lou Reed, Patti Smith and James Ellroy for a collection of reviews and features, and then becoming an acclaimed author, 

nominated for the Costa First Novel Award.

Following on from an Open- Mic night, Acko suggested they set the words to a musical score and the Revelator Orchestra was born.

Acko is a Dub who hung around street corners with Kila and The Frames  back in the day, busking guitars and gigging.

He is the kind of guy you think you know already as soon as you’re introduced.   

Music with a capital M -  front -man, songwriter, composer, recording engineer, and since 2005, producer.  

“Acko was that guy in your class who knew all the cool bands” says Glen Hansard.

He is also the kind of guy you want to sit with in a farmhouse kitchen at 5 am, the windows flung open in the still, early  morning air to let the smoke out, an empty  bottle of Absolut by the back door, another  absolutely half full on the table, while you talk of Dylan and seascapes and Ambient  sounds.

Because Murphy has a presence that could stare the black off a crow, the light is provided to his shade by the presence of Ms Paula Cox, a woman so impossibly pretty as to be untenable, a scattering of freckles across her perfect features that look like they were drawn by Disney.

It is obvious to the Blind man from Howth that they are lovers.

 Cox was the lead singer with “The Bush, The Tree, and Me” for years and was signed in 2000 to Epic, counting Blur, The Strokes and Jarvis Cocker among her many fans. She has sung on, and composed for film scores and has written, arranged, sung and co-produced the tracks on the album - 

“The Brotherhood of the Flood”

You will either get the performance or you will not.

The Revelator Orchestra is not for the fainthearted and may provoke people of gentle persuasion to run away shrieking and curl up in a wardrobe saying make it stop.

It may inspire feelings of wanting to eat your own foot or hurl chairs across a room.

Or it may – in a heartbeat  -  lift you from the space you inhabit...... to a crimson throbbing place -    a place with a soundtrack of  primal beats and weblike words - 

Murphy  wearing black feathered wings and  blacker eyeliner,  climbing across  legs, tables  and glasses, presenting us with his id while his ego watches through its fingers  in terror, while Acko  beats a wailing guitar into submission, and  while a beautiful woman screams in an ethereal  and  ungodlike way, 

and take you to the  very core of yourself while your neck tingles.

Or  not. 

 

Peter Murphy  pic - M.D.M. 2013

 The Revelator Orchestra plays the Workmans Club in Dublin on April 13th

M.D.M.