Peter Murphy

5 Albums

Bauhaus frontman’s first five solo albums repackaged. You can always rely on Beggars Banquet to understand that what’s outside counts too, and they’ve stepped up with this gorgeous-looking collection of Peter Murphy’s five post-Bauhaus/Dali’s Car albums: Should The World Fall Apart, Love Hysteria, Deep, Holy Smoke and Cascade. They’re presented as a sturdy hardback book, with extensive liner notes and original artwork.

The tracklisting has been compiled with just as much care, each album epilogued with a wealth of lost songs, rough mixes and alternative versions.

On Should The World Fall

Apart, which found Murphy moving away from the pure goth of Bauhaus to embrace new wave, a bigger picture emerges via a robotic version of the title track. A club mix of his take on Pere Ubu’s Final Solution, meanwhile, evokes smoky nights in provincial goth clubs as instantaneously as the smell of stale cider and blackcurrant.

The Love Hysteria album has a touch of the Bowies about it, compounded by reclaimed song I’ve Got A Miniature

Secret Camera, last heard on the soundtrack to the 1990 Christian Slater film Pump Up

The Volume, although the USA edit of album opener All Night Long offers up some perfectly polished early-MTV goth-pop.

The latter clearly had an effect, because he fully committed to the radio-rock route with Deep, although how essential bonus instrumental Deep Ocean Vast Sea is remains debatable.

Holy Smoke features among its collection of extras a clunky (bites knuckles) “rave edit” of The Sweetest Drop that’s well-meaning but misjudged. However, it’s a pointer to some of the far superior experimentation to come on the atmospheric Cascade.

With at least five bonus tracks per album, and all wrapped up in such a gorgeous package,

5 Albums shows exactly how physical media can remain relevant and collectable in the age of streaming.

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emma Johnston