We previously reviewed Montreal’s Markus Murphy in April with his R&B summer anthem, Already Blue. We’re delighted to be listening to him again today at the Send Me Your Ears studio with his latest single, Castle Made For Two.
As with his previous recording, Castle Made For Two was recorded “live off the floor” with session players. Castle Made For Two deals with themes of solitude and the loss of someone close.
Castle Made For Two has a very different feel to Already Blue. The quality of musicianship and live off the floor feel to the track is still very evident, but the entire song takes on much more of a chillout/ study vibes feel. We can imagine this track being played late into the night in the student union of the local university.
Everything about Castle Made For Two just feels relaxing. From the dreamy psychedelic feeling guitars at the start to the synth pads and vibraphone sounds, this is a very slightly Francophone-feeling track. We particularly loved the jazzy chord progressions.
The vocals are dreamy with some lovely reverbs and spot-on layered harmonies. We like how the vocals play off each other in places, with two lead lines filling in the gaps between each other.
The electric guitar solo is simple with lots of space in it and plenty of time to melt away with your thoughts. The whole song has a positive, almost euphoric vibe which leaves you floating away with your own thoughts.
The rhythm guitar fills in some gaps perfectly and the snare work on the drums is excellent. We like the gentle rise and fall of this track and the brief pause in the drum track for the bass to take the lead a little more.
The organ solo to the fade out is so mellow and jazzy that this track simply must be picked up by a chillout playlister or two! The entire soundscape is so relaxing and made us want to just curl up and bask in it.
Possibly a good candidate for a sync deal, we’d suggest Markus seeks out opportunities for this track to be placed in a TV show. It fits the bill of what music supervisors are looking for and could win Markus lots more new fans.
This chilled out track had us nodding our heads and relaxing pretty quickly. To our ears, the track could use a small high shelf boost in the top three octaves for extra brightness but be careful not to increase the sibilance in the vocal too much. Maybe a small notch back out around 5.5kHz.
Castle Made For Two shows the great diversity and skills of Markus Murphy and his session players. We were bowled over by the simplicity and ease with which this track simply floats over you.