Martha Skye Murphy – “Yours Truly”
Martha Skye Murphy’s music career had an insane start: collaborating with none other than Nick Cave, when she was just a child, and then later singing on his great 2013 album Push The Sky Away. In recent years, Murphy’s been releasing her own music. After a 2018 debut EP, she returned this summer with the Heal EP. Along the way she’s embarked on some other endeavors, including collaborations with of-the-moment producer Dan Carey and the rising British art-rock troupe Squid. Now, she’s about to return with another collection of solo material: Her next EP, Yours Truly, will arrive next month.
In a statement, Murphy described the EP as a “children’s book for adults.” She went into more detail with the FADER:
I heard recently about a factory that had begun as a production line for bullets but later, with the same resources, had discovered a material for a bulletproof vest resulting in a much more fruitful business. Maybe I fabricated this story, I was listening to a podcast as I went to sleep. Either way, the sentiment resonated with me. Yours Truly does something similar. I was using the ashes of heartbreak to build something that allowed me to combat and process its ingredients.
In all my music I’ve been interested in exploring honesty; embracing rawness as something that enhanced my work rather than crippled it, challenging at what axis fiction and fact, documentary and reality meet. Yours Truly is no different, but it feels all the more strange that with these established interests in truth, I was forced to confront the topic of “dishonesty.” So when I was writing I found myself resorting to the naive voice of a child, singing in a playground without the protection of a parent. It’s a children’s book for adults.
Along with the announcement, Murphy’s shared the EP’s title track. It’s an icy, patient piano-driven song that eventually culminates in Murphy’s haunting, aggrieved reading of the words “yours truly.” It was produced by Andrew Sarlo, who’s also worked with Big Thief and Bon Iver. Check it out below.
TRACKLIST:
01 “XY”
02 “Outis”
03 “Yours Truly”
04 “In The Light In The Dark”
05 “Self Tape”
The Yours Truly EP is out 11/13.