Also this issue:

Keys to the Kingdom
Pianist Brad Mehldau goes his own way.
-Nate Chinen

Preston to Action
Spiral Stairs proves the Pavement dynasty’s for real.
-Brian Howard

Alejandro Escovedo
-Sam Adams

Pete Moss
-Sean O’Neal

Onelinedrawing
-Chris Parker

June 6-12, 2002

music

Coming Out of the Dark

Turkish Delight: Murphy says his past work is ãfull of melody and light, and a renaissance-like beauty.ä

Peter Murphy drops Dust on his old image.

by Helen H. Thompson

“full of melody and light, and a renaissance-like beauty.”

“Forget everything you think you know about Peter Murphy,” hypes the press release from Metropolis Records. “Tear it up and then tape it all back together with your eyes closed.”

Oh-kay. Perhaps the reason for that exhortation is that Murphy is still mostly remembered for being the flamboyant frontman of Bauhaus (see the club scene in The Hunger) and for his 1989 hit "Cuts You Up." And if that is the case with you, then yes, go ahead and forget everything you think you know, 'cause quite frankly, Murphy's rather boggled by the stereotype. "I always wonder why people always say Peter Murphy is all Œdark and brooding,'" he says, pointing out past work that is "full of melody and light, and a renaissance-like beauty."

Murphy's solo catalog, which spans close to 20 years, if you count Dali's Car, his 1984 side project with Japan's Mick Karn, has always contained songs that push the musical and intellectual envelope. His aching, melodious baritone drapes over sensual rhythms and lyrics that range well beyond the territory immortalized by his proto-gothic beginnings. That's not the Peter Murphy of 2002, calling from his hotel room in Canada the morning before the tour starts. But that is the voice, as mellifluously spoken over the wire as it is poured through the rich textures of his latest release, Dust (Metropolis), a marriage of Murphy's exultant music with Turkish- and Sufi-influenced trance, via Mercan Dede, a Turkish DJ now living in Montreal.

It is indeed fitting: Murphy's personal world is a collision of East and West. He met his Turkish wife, Beyhan, in the early '80s, when she approached him to play a role in a film she wanted to do. "The moment we met, I knew: ŒThat's it! I've got it!' And we're still making the film, although we did rather dispense with the actual making of a film," says Murphy, who moved with his wife and children to Turkey in 1992. "With Dust, my intent was to merge that wonderful quality of love that I'm surrounded with in Turkey with what others may call a Western approach."

Beyhan Murphy, the artistic director of Modern Dance Turkey, happened to have Dede's album lying about. Coincidentally, Murphy had just given the CD a spin and felt it was a direction he wanted to take, when Dede contacted him. Murphy felt it was a sign, and Dust was born.

Now, Murphy is on the road again for his fourth tour. He's been astonished at his reception -- after all, aside from one short EP in 1998, he hasn't released an album of all new material since 1995's Cascade; yet, devotees of his career flocked like wild birds to the solo tours. "That was the most remarkable thing about the two tours in 2000," he says. "You don't have to be subordinate to the music machine. Bauhaus [who reunited briefly in 1998] was obviously going to get an audience that was very purist and excited, but during my efforts to lobby the Bauhaus camp to reform permanently, which obviously didn't happen, I had to turn around and examine Peter Murphy's world. I immediately made the decision to go out and be who I am."

And Dust is the epitome, rather than the reinvention, of his brilliance, his presence, his musical force. To Peter Murphy, music is a living, breathing entity. Sensuality pervades his work, and for his fans resonating still from the seven-year ache of peepshow teasings and retrospective foreplay, this is a climax -- gentle, sustained, intense. From these fans, Murphy accepts compliments with quiet grace, and wryly turns it around. "I'm really happy with the album, but it's yours now, not mine," he says. "Nothing can replace my core audience who have been with me through the years, but I want to invite everyone to share."

Peter Murphy will play Tue., June 11, 7 p.m., $20-$22, with Michael J. Sheehy at the Trocadero, 10th and Arch sts., 215-922-LIVE, www.thetroc.com.

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