Havergal | es

Havergal is a young man named Ryan Murphy from Bedford, Texas -- an architect by day, a somewhat manic-depressive singer-songwriter by night (and founder of Western Vinyl Records). Tinny guitars, lo-fi loops and samples, mechanical drum beats, and painfully direct, honest songwriting comprise his music. Murphy's quirky, sometimes almost bouncy pop compositions provide an ironic counterpoint to his verge-of-tears vocal style and bleeding heart lyrics. And bleeding heart is a bit of an understatement on some of these numbers; Murphy's crooned topics range from the bitterness of unrequited love to the sickening hollowness of personal failure to the anguish of...

William (Havergal) Brian (1876–1972), was an English composer. William Brian (he adopted the name "Havergal" from a local family of hymn-writers) was born on 29th January 1876 in Dresden, a district of Stoke-on-Trent, and was one of a very small number of composers to come from the English working class. After attending an elementary school he had difficulty finding any congenial work, and taught himself the rudiments of music. For a time he was organist of Odd Rode Church just across the border in Cheshire. In 1895, he heard a choir rehearsing Edward Elgar's King Olaf, attended the first performance,...