shane murphy

Shane Murphy (b. 1986) is an early riser, a quiet observer, a student of Spanish literature, mostly an agreeable companion. He makes the music of a modern minstrel, drawing equally from the foreign and the intimately known. Raised in rural Northern New York, between the St. Lawrence River Valley and the Adirondack Mountains, his music demonstrates a reverence for the natural landscape, without ignoring the culture of urban life and urban decay. A tenor that rises and falls in a manner reminiscent of Tim Buckley, with lyrics evidently influenced by the poetry of Whitman, Frost and W.S. Merwin, he is fully capable both of lifting you up and breaking your heart.



As loosestrife /tightgrief spools out, stylistic vocal nods abound; Tim Buckley’s elastic, acrobatic croon; Antony Hegarty’s dramatic quaver; Scott Walker’s burnished baritone. Deft acoustic guitar work provides the bedrock throughout, with occasional atmospheric background brushstrokes of tabla, melodica, soft piano, and keening electric guitar. Antecedents aplenty, but the vision and delivery are idiosyncratic and completely Murphy’s own; a welcome, refreshingly original take on the unvanquished troubadour. --Chronogram Magazine, November 2010