Almost five months on from the release of his most recent Chet Faker album, Hotel Surrender, Nick Murphy has unveiled his latest project, with new band The Program set to release their debut album this week.
Slated for release on Friday, December 10th, Take in The Roses is the first record from Nick Murphy & The Program, a band which comprises its namesake, along with Nick Kinsey (Waxahatchee, Kevin Morby), Jake Falby (Chet Faker, Julie Byrne), Tim Lappin, and Tim Mislock, with production handled by longtime collaborator Dave Harrington (Darkside).
Written and recorded pre-pandemic at the Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas, Take in The Roses was recorded almost entirely live, and features starkly different influences (such as Americana) than what fans would be used to in Murphy’s Chet Faker project.
“It’s really just about players and people in a room and just you know, making music,” Murphy told Rolling Stone Australia earlier this year, noting a desire to make a record like Van Morrison’s acclaimed Astral Weeks. “[It’s] the original way of just expressing yourself.”
In a statement released alongside the album’s announcement, Murphy echoed this sentiment, simply noting that “this record is important for a lot of reasons, but if I had to choose one, it’s that it was fun to make.”
Sharing a teaser video of the record today, Take in The Roses will also be accompanied by a video for main single, “Old Dog”, which serves as a nostalgic and sentimental link to Murphy’s past. Pieced together by Murphy using studio clips from the making of the album, it’s also complemented by footage from a road trip taken with his later father.
“I had these super8 rolls from a road trip with my dad,” he explains of the vision. I can’t really imagine anything else for the song. That wasn’t the plan of course. It never is.”
Nick Murphy & The Program’s Take in The Roses will be released on Friday, December 10th, via BMG/Detail Records.
