Paul Murphy is a generous, passionated and impredictable DJ, as notoriously demonstrated last summer at Paris OPA where we’ve had such an unforgettable experience. Dancehall, jazz, house, soul… 4 hours of continuous mix with almost every tune like a discovery to many dancers at the club. Producer/remixer, his own records are played by the biggest names.. Back from a European tour, he’s on his way to release both an album and a comp. Should he ever come next to your door, check him out, you won’t regreat it…Words by Céline
Hi Paul. What have you been up to recently ?
I've been DJing around Europe in what might be taken as a forlorn & hopeless quest to visit every Country in Europe. But I'm not doing too bad as I now only have a dozen or so to go : Czech Republic, Slovakia, Albania, Moldova, Cyprus Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Bulgaria, Luxembourg (never even been through it), Ukraine, Romania are the biggies… Malta, Andorra, Monaco & San Marino are gonna be tough although I did go on a day trip to Liechtenstein ! And I’ve spinned in Kosovo and thats only negotiating to be a country. It’s almost an obsession but a magnificent one I think. ..And I've been working in the studio again after a two month break.
Could you tell us how did you start your career ?
Which career ??? I've never really had one. I've been a DJ, worked in dead end office jobs, sold wine, waited tables, tended bars, managed a restaurant and a couple of nightclubs, ran a record label, owned quite a few record shops, (which did very badly financially), clothes shops too, (which did very well financially...lucky for me), washed dishes in restaurants (a low point), been a professional film extra (I was an ambulance man in Batman, a dead Viking in Erik The Viking, a French Knight in Henry V & a whole host of backgrounds in TV programmes like Inspector Morse) been unemployed several times & unemployable several times more. But I digress, the DJing started (probably, I'm getting too old to really remember accurately) in the very late 1970's. I can't even remember the reason I started doing it but it must have been a good one. But now of course I'm running a record label Afro Art Records, a job I really love doing.
Who were your first inspirations?
Musically ? Lying in bed, stricken with some childhood disease (I think it was Hepititas or what we called Jaundice in those days), listening to Pirate Radio (the real pirates who lived in ships on the sea) playing Len Barry "123". Like taking candy from a baaaby. I knew then that the life of a bricklayer was not for me.
A word on the Spiritual South project you're having with Marc Woolford...
Spiritual South (although I'd love to take the credit for it) was not me. It was Danny Lewis who was the studio mastermind behind all the releases like ‘Green Gold’ & the remixes of ‘Jazz Room’, ‘Happy’ etc etc & Mark Robertson . I did write ‘Jazz Room’ along with Marc Woolford though. Alas, the Spiritual South that did all those wonderful records are no more as Danny has been snapped up to a major deal by Defected Records of London. He's releasing a record called ‘Ballistica’ next year. I gotta tell you, it’s absolutely fantastic. I only wish that we could have released it on Afro Art & I can pay it no finer compliment than that.
While listening to your productions, we feel the strong influence of Latin and Brazilian music. How did you get introduced to these sounds? Did you travel in South America ?
HMMM. Like a lot of people I've travelled. All over the world... But mostly in my head. If you really listen & look, you can be influenced by almost anything from anywhere.
Also, what is your position at Afro Art Records?
Tenuous. Well sometimes anyway. But I seem to be like an old & retired sheepdog these days, always has his favourite piece of the floor & everyone works around me. I can ask no more.
We've played together last summer in Paris (a great party!). I started my selection with Edwin Starr’s classic “War”. A track which has seemed to to disturb you a bit. How come ?
I'm living in a country (United Kingdom) where, much to my chagrin, I suddenly find myself involved in a war. Both 5000 miles away in Iraq & in places so familiar as to be almost part of my daily existence. ie the Underground system , bus system.. A record that was seen as an abstraction, that was written over 30 years ago about another place, another country, another time, another war. And suddenly, with its very hard hitting although simplistic lyrics, it really became relevant. I never even dreamed that I'd see a repeat of mistakes made in the war in Vietnam all those years ago suddenly becoming a daily reality & I'm watching the same kind of news items on TV. It’s like a waking nightmare & I'm finding that music, films, books are just becoming un-. Un-? I can't explain it ! I just can't listen or watch certain things.
There are a loads o’great DJ’s in UK, could your give us your top 5?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. hard. But the most influential dj's (for me anyway) have been Charlie Gillett (still on BBC London), Chris Hill (older than Jesus Christ by now), Mark Roman (an unknown East London legend), Benny Wilson (who practically invented mixing & the mixtape) & that guy at the youth club when I was a kid. Never knew his name, but he started me off.
You have an album in the shelves, could you tell us more about it ?
Well it’s part of all the kinds of music that have infected me along the years, but it started off as a journey I made a couple of years ago, a trip around India. That’s why its called The Trip. I saw things I never expected, did things I certainly never even thought that were possible for me to do. One of the songs was written about my favorite bar in my favorite city ‘Budapest Chachacha’. I did a version of the theme from my favorite film (Seven Samurai), I wrote a tune about a friend (‘Mr Cosmic’), I did a jazz tune (‘Herbie Mann’) & there are a few others too. I got my idea for the cover as well as for the label too. So I'm just gonna release it next year & see how it goes. If it sells, it sells. But I've done it. And I'm also working on a compilation, my first for 20 years. Its called Afro Arthouse… We've got people like Glyn Bigga Bush, Diesler, Mod'x, Jung Collective, Shannon Harris, Peak doing funky versions of the themes from films like Goodbye Lenin, The Wicker Man, Underground, Get Carter, Withnail & I, 2001, 5 Deadly Venoms & more. All original versions too, no remixes !
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