Peter Murphy
Should The World Fail To Fall Apart (Beggars Banquet)
by Nik Rainey
The further we sink into video-ready Weltschmerz these days, the more I appreciate the manicured malaise of Goth and its practitioners. Both hinge on the adolescent obsession with death and misery, each mistaking unsmiling pretentiousness for profundity, but the innate appeal of Goth lies in its more obvious fraudulence. You can be sure that most of the Hell-Night-at-Man-Ray crowd don’t really want to die; there might be no black nail polish in the next world, after all. It’s heartening, therefore, that the U.S. arm of Beggars Banquet has finally made the first post-Bauhaus projects of sepulchral song-stylist Peter Murphy available on these shores. Like most of his former Haus-mates, Murphy’s solo work has met with almost universal critical derision (and no, I don’t consider anybody who willingly publishes haiku with too many syllables on the subject of Nosferatu’s dental hygiene a critic), but, and this may be just the art-phag inside me talking, these two albums, encompassing Murphy’s transition from biting necks to giving elegant hickies, go down quite smoothly, thank you.
Bauhaus and fellow English art-fops, Japan, parted ways at about the same time, so it was quite logical that Murphy would find a (fleeting) kindred spirit and collaborator in Jap bassist Mick Karn, forming Dalis Car (the relation to the Beefheart tune of the same name stops there), the Blind Faith of pale-skinned, style-conscious Brit post-punk. Like the latter contrivance, they lasted for only one album which was immediately repudiated by its creators, but The Waking Hour (originally released in 1984) fits together Petey’s deep baritone and Karn’s fretless bass punctuations and sensual electronics rather nicely, particularly on the weightless synth-psalm “Cornwall Stone” and the enthnomusical mixed metaphor (looped tabla meets clarinet) “Create and Melt.” A far more verdant and affirmative soundscape than Bauhaus ever attempted, from the Maxfield Parrish cover art on down.
Should The World Fail To Fall Apart (originally released in 1986) ushers in Murphy’s solo career with an even more romantic flourish. 4AD label head Ivo Watts-Russell co-produced, and his influence is evident in the rich, drum-machine-driven aural landscape which sweetens songs like “Canvas Beauty” and “Blue Heart.” There’s also Murphy’s riposte to Daniel Ash’s anti-Murphy song (“Movement of Fear” from Tones on Tail’s Pop album), which incorporates most of that song’s lyrics to ensure you get the point. (Not quite a Lennon/McCartney-esque feud, since Ash contributes “manic guitar” to the damn album.) Two covers, Magazine’s “The Light Pours Out Of Me” and Pere Ubu’s “Final Solution,” round out the album and serve as testaments to Pete’s good taste. The latter is a particularly bizarre choice, especially since David Thomas probably eats things that weigh as much as Murphy for a midnight snack, but it’s pretty magnificent nonetheless, thanks to the white-knuckled beat and the singer’s mock-tough vocal sneer. These are probably the two best records of Murphy’s increasingly austere solo epoch, and eyeliner addicts all across this land should light a black candle at their belated arrival in the States. Post-Goth’s not (un)dead.
