7/19/2023

POSTDATA (Paul Murphy) Channels Determination on New Single, "Try" | 'Run Wild' LP Due 9/22 via Paper Bag Records

POSTDATA Channels Determination on New Single, "Try"

Run Wild LP Due 9/22 via Paper Bag Records
Photo by Griffin O'Toole
PRE-ORDER: POSTDATA - Run Wild LP
Paper Bag Records

LISTEN & SHARE: POSTDATA - "Try"
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LISTEN/WATCH & SHARE: POSTDATA - "Mine The Sea"
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LISTEN/PURCHASE & SHARE: POSTDATA - Twin Flames LP
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LISTEN/WATCH & SHARE: POSTDATA - "Inside Out"
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LISTEN/WATCH & SHARE: POSTDATA - "Nobody Knows"
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LISTEN/WATCH & SHARE: POSTDATA - "Twin Flames"
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"Irresistibly bouncy"
Backseat Mafia

"The track offers a breath of lightness with hints of joy and love within the driving pop sounds. GEM."
Austin Town Hall
POSTDATA — the solo music project of Wintersleep lead singer and songwriter, Paul Murphy — recently announced the forthcoming arrival of a brand new LP entitled Run Wild, due September 22 via Paper Bag Records.

As a follow-up to the record's first single, "Mine The Sea," today, POSTDATA returns with a second cut entitled "Try." The electronic R&B sway of "Try" finds Murphy wrestling with the  Sisyphean struggle of working as a musician, the sweetness and the bitterness that swap places each day. "Try, try another road, drive until you break down/Try, try, weather all the storms, drive into the eye now," he urges on the chorus.

As Murphy wrote of the track: "I think this is about following your passion wherever it leads...there’s a sense of humour I think to it and a sense of lightness and darkness and desperation too..essentially, they are the same lyrics in verse 1 and 2 with a slight twist in perspective or that’s what I’m trying to arrive at."

Last year, POSTDATA shared their critically-acclaimed album, Twin Flames (out now via Paper Bag Records), which found support at The Guardian, Sunday Times, MOJO, The Line of Best Fit, Louder Than War, and more.
POSTDATA - "Try" [OFFICIAL AUDIO]
Run Wild - TRACKLISTING:

01. Mine The Sea
02. Run Wild
03. Look to the Stars
04. Holy Hollow
05. Dead Man
06. Circular Ruins
07. Moons
08. Twigs Underfoot
09. Try
10. Raven
Album Artwork + Design by James Mejia
Run Wild - Release Bio:

Run WildPOSTDATA’s forthcoming fourth LP, from its first springtime keystrokes, is a brilliant, technicolor indie rock odyssey.

There is a palpable sense of magic and possibility and light to the record, even in its heavier moments. With this collection of 10 songs, Paul Murphy has crystallized the elements he’s played with for decades: pop melodics and structure, prog and indie-rock arrangements, avant-folk intimacy and quirk. Murphy plays the mad alchemist, precisely combining these pieces to create a record that feels like a thick, sprawling, sun-soaked magic garden, where listeners can sprint and jump and scream and laugh, and feel whatever it is they need to feel.

“I felt like it was time to take POSTDATA someplace new, and be a little more free with what it is,” he says. “I was trying to go all-out stylistically, and trying to flesh out all the different places that it could actually take it. I wanted to give it more space, allow it to go wherever it needed to.”

Run Wild, from its encouraging, bright-eyed title right through Murphy’s lyrics and prose, brings vibrations of self-discovery and growth. Murphy explains that a lot of the songs ended up being about trusting yourself and coming into your own, two processes that often go hand in hand. “At its best, songwriting is a place where you can feel yourself transitioning to new heights and lows,” he says. The dark, frantic, post-punk spiral of “Moons” hints at this: “Becoming yourself again/Reanimating/You are the paths you take.”

To bring Run Wild to life, Murphy and co-producer Joe Chiccarelli (The Shins, The Strokes, Morrissey) met at Tragically Hip’s renowned Bathouse studio in Ontario, Canada for a five-day stretch of 15 hour work days. Murphy initially planned to work on a record of heavier material, but Chiccarelli listened to a batch of 40 demos and narrowed it down to a well curated, diverse grouping, encouraging Murphy to take the album to more provocative and innovative new places. Drummer Jordan Murphy and bassist Keith Doiron (Walrus) tracked the record with them, then Murphy recorded all the vocals from his home in Halifax. Nyles Spencer (The Tragically Hip, Kevin Drew, July Talk) engineered the record, and Matty Green (U2, Dua Lipa) mixed it.

The care and vision of Run Wild are immediate. Opener “Mine The Sea” channels late-Beatles pep and imagination, a classic pop-rock jaunt with a sunny, salty oceanside chorus: “Mine the sea, swim the deep/Endlessly, how do I know you?” Murphy sings. The invigorating start gives way to the indie-folk splendor of title track “Run Wild,” a tender jolt of a love song. The soul-searching, beautiful “Look To The Stars” is based on a melody that Murphy would sing as a lullaby to his son, meditating on space; “Holy Hollow” begins with pinging, distorted synths and builds to a pounding art-pop climax. The nearly-disco violins and 4/4 engine of “Dead Man” dance around Murphy’s new wave guitar riffing, then “Circular Ruins” takes the wheel, steering into a glitchy prog-rock descent.

The metamorphosis of “Moons” expires and collapses into “Twigs Underfoot,” which in the studio turned into a stream-of-consciousness love song that celebrates connection with your surroundings in fleeting moments of joy and calm. The electronic R&B sway of “Try” finds Murphy wrestling with the Sisyphean struggle of working as a musician, the sweetness and the bitterness that swap places each day. “Try, try another road, drive until you break down/Try, try, weather all the storms, drive into the eye now,” he urges on the chorus.

The journey of Run Wild culminates in the swelling, sublime acoustic closer “Raven.” Lyrically, the track paces into the more haunted paths found within that same garden of self discovery, twisting in the twilight, subsiding ultimately into the “black raven eyes” of darkness, grief, and self-doubt, which threaten to extinguish everything once and for all. But with all that has come before it, the warmth and beauty of the music swelling up and wrapping around its narrative, you get a sense that this sort of struggle and torment is an integral process. That there’s so much beauty and grace to be found in facing the abyss and moving through it. That there’s reason to.

Run Wild is out September 22nd on Paper Bag Records.
MORE PRAISE FOR POSTDATA

"The gigantic Indie pop of 'Inside Out' sounding like Arcade Fire on galloping uppers [...] Proof that inventive, envelope-pushing indie rock hasn't disappeared off the map just yet" ****
- MOJO

"This album is a triumph – intimate, irresistible, bright, and hopeful, with songs that spellbind you from the first listen." 9/10
God Is In The TV

"An album that is never quite content occupying the middle-ground, bouncing between life-affirming zeal and ruminative numbers; a contemplative yet gleefully escapist spirit that feels at once incongruous but befitting an anarchic state of catharsis" 8/10
Line Of Best Fit

"Anchored in musings that go to the very core of the human existence, Twin Flames is a collection of poignant observations that provide a gentle touchstone to keep us on track."
Secret Meeting

"While it begins with the simple plinking of piano keys, it grows to a grandiose orchestral post piece, lushly arranged with a variety of instrumentation as Murphy’s vocal delivery grows more passionate with each line’s delivery."
MXDWN

"Coupled with some wide-eyed and open-hearted lyrics, tinged with hints of romance and self-deprecation, the track offers a lovely respite full of folk-tinged joy."
Under The Radar

"Nova Scotian enormity meets Scottish self-hatred on a song that sounds as if it’s surfing an avalanche on a copy of Rumours."
The Guardian
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