about
Creator of the Seven Crows project, Chris Murphy
ABOUT CHRIS MURPHY
Los Angeles–based violinist, composer, and looping artist Chris Murphy — known by his moniker Seven Crows — is set to release his second instrumental album, Powers of Observation (Teahouse Records, February 2026), a striking exploration of ambient, post-rock, and experimental soundscapes built entirely from the dynamic voice of the electric violin.
Seven Crows is Murphy’s vehicle for crafting cinematic and emotive sound worlds where layered violins, sustain lines, and live looping converge into vivid sonic textures. His debut album, Secrets of Navigation (2020), takes the listener on an introspective and cinematic journey, drawing comparisons to Silver Mt. Zion, Warren Ellis, and Lisa Molinaro.
Born into an Irish-Italian family near New York City, Murphy grew up surrounded by his neighbors’ traditional folk music before discovering rock ’n’ roll and drawing influence from adventurous icons such as Lou Reed, Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan, and Richard Thompson. He later studied Turkish and Indian music at Simon’s Rock of Bard College and composition at Boston’s New England Conservatory, grounding his intuitive creativity in formal training.
A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Murphy explored percussion, guitar, mandolin, and Eastern instruments before finding his true voice on the violin at age 22. Onstage, he thrives on spontaneity and improvisation, weaving global influences into music that blurs the boundaries between genres.
Having performed across more than 40 U.S. states and throughout England, Ireland, and The Netherlands, Murphy continues to expand the sonic universe of Seven Crows — transforming emotion, place, and experience into atmosphere through the expressive power of the violin.
AMBIENT POST ROCK
Across the desert under a midday sun. The shadowy American heartland is on the all-night Greyhound. Pre-dawn at sea, no land in sight. These are the kinds of alluring cinematic musical landscapes of openness in isolation that one encounters by innovative Violinist, Chris Murphy’s new Seven Crows moniker. Based in Los Angeles, a prolific songwriter, composer, and performer, Murphy presents his latest masterful instrumental opus, Secrets of Navigation.
This 8-song cycle of layered violin compositions meld artfully nuanced plucked rhythmic figures, lyrical phrasing, and shimmering sustained lines, all refracted by reverbs, echoes, and modulation pedals.
As Murphy explains, “Instrumental music is challenging because you’re asking people to come on a journey with you, but you’re not telling them where you’re going.” You’ll have to trust the navigator on this one: Touching on the varied terrain Murphy has explored in the past, Secrets of Navigation takes listeners into areas of high intrigue and suspense, as on the eerie “Last Letter from Orson Welles,” and to gulfs of vast space as on the aptly titled“Nightsong.” But you’re just as likely to find yourself in a bustling North African souq, as on “Chamoru” or “AncientWays.” Or, perhaps you’ll arrive in the artsy southwest enclave of Bisbee, Arizona, where Murphy tracked these ambient violin elegies with producer Dan Simonis. While the violin is the only instrument being played, don’t be surprised if you hear echoes of kalimba, pipe organ, birdsong, bagpipes, vintage synthesizers, or Miles Davis’ wah-wah trumpet warbles coming from that fiddle. Like fellow violin iconoclasts Warren Ellis (The Dirty Three) and Lisa Molinaro (Modest Mouse), Murphy travels with a supernatural violin in that beat-up, brooding black case. Who knows what you’ll find in there or where it will take you.
– James Rotundi, Jazz Times, Acoustic Guitar
“Instrumental music is challenging because I’m asking you to come on a journey with me, but I’m not telling you where you’re going.”
– Chris Murphy