Murphy Radio, "Murphy Radio"
Fresh emo jazz standards for coming-of-age antics everywhere
My childhood home is about 10,000 miles from Samarinda, but Murphy Radio collapses that distance to nothing. The Indonesian band’s eponymous debut is chock-full of feels that will resonate with memories of adolescence pretty much anywhere. There’s a certain universality to the heady mix of freedom and wonder found in that phase of life, when every experience feels new and all emotions are dialed to 10. It’s a sentiment that’s inspired countless emo groups from Pittsburgh to Palo Alto, but few can claim to have captured it as well as Murphy Radio.
Taking their band name from a dialogue in an Indian rom-com, the Samarindan trio has all but perfected the starry guitar style that was developed by the likes of Piglet and TTNG and has since found fertile ground in Southeast Asia. The melodies are tight but fluid, the time signatures as elastic as taffy, and the vibes frequently cathartic (helped along here and there by some skillfully-placed harmonics). The guitar work is exceptionally impressive but not egregiously so, folding well into whatever mood a particular song pursues. Bassist Aldi Yamin and drummer Akbartus Ponganan lend depth and momentum respectively, giving guitarist Wendra the space to casually weave his riffs into curlicues.
Crafted by three kids not yet far enough into adulthood to forget their youth, Murphy Radio is both a brilliant debut and a multi-shot remedy against existential fatigue, one that deserves to be inducted into whatever cannon American Football belongs to. “Gracias,” “Godspeed,” and “Graduation Song” all lay down hooks as sharp as anything the American Midwest served up circa 1998, but it’s lead single “Sports Between Trenches” that stands out as an unequivocal Asian answer to “Never Meant,” trading in a bit of the Kinsellas’ introspective melancholy for an equally introspective type of hope. The result is a song primed to turn even the most mundane moments into something profound and alive with possibility.
For hardcore math rock fans, this feature may be a reintroduction. For everyone else, settle in. Murphy Radio is here, making soundtracks for a movie that hasn’t been written yet. If they sound familiar, it might be because that movie is your life.
