“’THE ARTROOM WONDER’ is an echo from my fourth year at senior school,” explains post-punk icon PETER MURPHY about his new single which is released today, March 21, 2025 via Metropolis Records. “Daniel Ash [former Bauhaus bandmate] and I are listening to the mysterious sixth-year cool intelligentsia that have gathered in the artroom. We have dared to enter their conclave, and the music coming from it was intriguing. We discover that the song being played is ‘The Bewlay Brothers’, highly intelligent, mystical and sensual, with the singer’s voice as seductive as anyone I’d ever heard.” Listen here.
Taken from his upcoming album SILVER SHADE (release date: May 9, 2025), “The Artroom Wonder” features TOOL’s Justin Chancellor on bass, one of many guest musicians on Murphy’s album which will be released on 2xLP (with color variants), CD and digital formats. Produced by YOUTH (Pink Floyd, Killing Joke, The Orb, Paul McCartney “The Firemen,” Faith No More, Alien Sex Fiend, Siouxsie and the Banshees), the album was recorded at Youth’s studio in Spain and is the second album that the pair have worked on together since 2014’s Lion. A symbiotic relationship born of artistic collaboration, Silver Shade is, as he recently attested, “as powerful as any of my work to date.”
“[‘The Artroom Wonder’] has a surreal approach, telling the story in my typical oblique style, including the description of a lowdown that leads into an evocation of the perfected human being, the Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him),” explains Murphy about the song. “The final verse celebrates my own self-advancing and position on this.”
Following the release of “Swoon” in mid-February and last year’s surprise duet with Boy George, “Let The Flowers Grow” (which is included on the album as a bonus track), “The Artroom Wonder” explores the transformative power of art and music, celebrating the beauty of creativity, and the way art and music can bridge gaps between people, stir deep emotions, and reflect the human soul. It’s about finding solace, joy, and inspiration in the process of creation, whether it’s a painting, a song, or any form of self-expression.
Peter Murphy’s solo career began in 1986 with the release of Should The World Fail To Fall Apart and continues to this day. His nine previous albums have spawned such decisive singles as “All Night Long,” “Indigo Eyes,” “Cuts You Up,” “Strange Kind of Love,” “The Scarlet Thing In You,” “Seesaw Sway,” and “I Am My Own Name.”
First emerging from the British punk and rock underground in the late ‘70s, Murphy (along with bandmates Daniel Ash, David J and Kevin Haskins) fronted the groundbreaking iconic rock band Bauhaus which spawned four iconoclastic and ultra-seminal albums as well as keystone singles “She’s In Parties,” “Dark Entries,” “The Passion of Lovers,” “Silent Hedges,” and, of course, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” before disbanding in 1983 with a handful of reunions since then.
“THE ARTROOM WONDER” is released today, March 21, 2025 via Metropolis Records. Silver Shade was produced by Youth and will be released May 9, 2025.
