Peter Murphy releases two albums on his new record label Silver Shade this month with the final being `Peter Live – Vol Two – Blender Theatre NYC 2003` an unreleased concert from the Blender Theatre at Gramercy, New York on 27th June 2008.
The show / album opens with `Ziker` from the last Bauhaus`s album `Go Away White` a kind of spoken word intro which is an act of mindful remembrance of Allah. The track moves into `The Line Between The Devil’s Teeth` a single that was released from Peter`s third album `Deep` which here has a real resonance of Bauhaus in their prime.
We enjoy a couple of cuts from the singer`s fifth album `Cascade with `Disappearing In Her Hand` a slow burn that is pretty forceful and has some absorbing guitar riffs and the intriguing and shimmering `Gliding Like A Whale`.
`Burning From The Inside` a Bauhaus standard is sandwiched between the `Cascade` cuts, and still retains its sense of unease despite being over forty years old. We have the fairly mesmerising `Marlene Dietrich’s Favourite Poem` which was inspired by a documentary the singer saw about the famous German actress.
`I’ll Fall With Your Knife` is a further offering from `Cascade` and a song that is an admission of undying love and has a delightful heartbreaking appeal. We enjoy a kind of rock out with `The Sweetest Drop` which was on the `Holy Smoke` release.
Another composition from `Deep` gets an airing with the enthralling `Crystal Wrists` before Sarah Fimm joins the singer to share vocals on `Huuvola` a piece written for Murphy’s daughter and younger son about missing and being separated from a close relation. A quite anthemic ballad like composition.
`Deep Ocean Vast Sea` has a kind of hypnotic dreaminess about it while we get a brief segment of `The Three Shadows Part One` as it leads into `A Strange Kind Of Love` a song which may be interpreted about possibly a love triangle which has an unerring beauty about it here. It melds into `Bela Lugosi’s Dead` Bauhaus`s debut single which is now forty-five years old. I still have my white vinyl 12″, one of 5000 originally released.
`She’s In Parties` I have to say is one of my favourite Bauhaus numbers and it`s every bit as good here as it always was. A number from Bauhaus`s 2008`s fifth and final album `Go Away White` the almost spellbinding `Adrenalin` is shared although it seems to be misspelled as `Adrenaline` here. It fragments into `Be My Wife` a cover of a track off David Bowie`s 1977 `Low` album, although it`s listed as part of the previous `Parties` song.
`Cuts You Up` has a gleaming almost glistening texture about it, a number that was on the `Deep` album and the singer has hinted that what cuts him up is “The path of discovery, self-knowledge, wisdom… once you feel you have it. Then the path will spit you out or off the way and ruin your assumptions of this path. In fact, a great mighty necessity for those spiritual seekers or so-called ‘holy state’ desires when getting arrogant.” The singer dedicates the single `All Night Long to his daughter who was born on the day he filmed the video. A track from his second solo album `Love Hysteria`.
Pere Ubu’s iconic ‘Final Solution’ a song that may well be about teenage angst and always a live favourite is given a blast with the cd version having a final bonus track with `Your Face` that begins with a pulse like beating heart and a haunting violin before the vocals join and draw you into its many layers as if casting or invoking a spell.
I thoroughly enjoyed this release. There was an interesting cross section of songs from throughout the artist`s long and distinguished career. There were tracks that I was familiar and less familiar with but shed new light. The release runs to around ninety minutes in length across two CDs which for me was certainly good value for money.
Rating 8.5/10
