Postdata (2010)

New Wax


Postdata is a new self-released project by Paul Murphy, who otherwise fronts award-winning Nova Scotia band Wintersleep. The album started a few years ago when Murphy and his brother Michael sketched some ideas into rough songs which were meant as a gift to their mother. The duo later got together to add polish to those sketches and to add more tracks to what would eventually become Postdata. Sonically, the project couldn't be more different than Wintersleep. The songs are sparse and atmospheric and combine a stripped-down folk aesthetic with noisy undertones. Thematically, Murphy's sentiments revolve around some heady themes: family, time, mortality. Murphy references his grandparents a number of times and pays homage to them with cryptic lyrical snapshots. Elsewhere, like on the lovely "Paranoid Clusters," Murphy displays an image-driven stream-of-consciousness approach. He sings: "Beneath a paranoid cluster of falling stars/ In the big black belly of the universe/ Old rotted out lumber and abandoned cars/ Bring your friends and family, flashlights, tape recorders/ Random stacks of letters, pens, postcards unmarked/ Cellphones smashed and scattered, plastic body parts, acre upon acre, layer upon layer/ Photographs of Jesus, Brando, Joan of Arc." Poetic at times, earnest and melancholy others, Postdata manages to be both intimate and far-reaching, personal yet dialed into themes universal to the human condition. -- Capt. Obvious

Listen:
MP3: Postdata - In Chemicals
MP3: Postdata - Tobias Grey

Tags: Postdata, Paul Murphy