Chris
Murphy - The Tinker’s Dream
The
Tinker’s Dream, Chris Murphy’s third album since May of 2016, is a new high in
the career of this New York City born songwriter and recording artist. There’s
a dozen tracks on his latest album, the vast majority of them instrumentals,
and Murphy’s capacity for crafting fine melodies that linger in the memory is
virtually unparalleled in the modern music world. They are top shelf in every
respect. These aren’t the sort of simple, condensed melodies that hook into
listeners at a shallow depth; their genuine catchiness reflects the skill of
their composer and the vital urgency with which they are delivered ensures that
they aren’t soon forgotten. Murphy’s worked with the cream of the crop in the
singer/songwriter genre, but also sterling instrumental talents, and he brings
an unique confluence of those two schools to bear on his solo work. The twelve
compositions on The Tinker’s Dream soar with virtuosity and solid fundamentals
while still speaking to our emotions and experiences.
Songs
like “Connemara Ponies” are especially geared to engage our imaginations. It
isn’t a stretch to say that, in reality, Chris Murphy isn’t in the music
business at all when he’s performing a song this powerful. Instead, he’s in the
transportation business and “Connemara Ponies” moves listeners from the
quantifiable world around them and, instead, invokes panoramic landscapes and
enormous green vistas where majestic animals run free. The title number picks
up some on that same vibe, but it isn’t quite as dramatic and feels a little
more earthbound. It does share some of the same energy and it’s a pair of songs
like this early on that helps The Tinker’s Dream get off to such an uplifting
start. Murphy’s first venture into singer/songwriter territory on the album,
“Wicklow”, has a pretty standard but solid lyric that he delivers with just the
right amount of relaxed, almost laconic personality. The musical arrangement is
never subservient to the singing, lyrics, or vocal melody and Murphy proves
just as adept handling this sort of material as ever.
“Gibraltar
1988” is, arguably, the most spartan musical recording on The Tinker’s Dream
and doesn’t front load the song with a bevy of instruments or breathless pacing
like many of the other tracks. There’s a definite melancholic note struck here,
but it doesn’t dominate the track or its mood. The second stab at the
singer/songwriter genre comes with “Cape Horn”, a much more elaborate and
ultimately more successful revision of the earlier song “Wicklow”. The
similarities between the two song’s lyrical themes are not uniform and Murphy
conjures up a much strong first person voice for this outing than the previous
one. “Small Wonder” is the final track with lyrics on The Tinker’s Dream and it
is a distinctly different trip than the preceding two. This is much more a song
about interpersonal relations than the storytelling focus of the earlier tracks
and has a much better, more memorable, chorus. The album closes out with “The
Hayloft Waltz”, a wonderfully elegant instrumental that ends The Tinker’s Dream
on the same upbeat note that started the album.
8
out of 10 stars
Scott
Wigley
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