The Mysterious Edit Murphy

Mysterious music-maker Edit Murphy has just released his "Brooklyn Nights" EP today on Smoke N' Mirrors.

Edit first caught our ear last year with his self-released "Motown Edits" series. Edit reworked tracks from some of the originators of Motor City soul, including Marvin Gaye, Bill Withers, and Stevie Wonder. The release quickly gained attention across the blogosphere as well as from from fellow DJs, including equally-mysterious edit-maestros Tiger & Woods. In support of the "Brooklyn Nights" release, Edit is currently in the middle of a US tour. This week he hits the West Coast: starting in San Diego, meandering through the LA, and ending up in San Francisco at the Smoke N Mirrors residency at Monarch.

What inspired the alias Edit Murphy? It came from experimenting with editing tracks and artists from the 1980s. It was a working title for all of the deeper disco music I was creating at the time it just stuck.

Is your creative process different when working on an edit as opposed to an original production? How so? When the goal is to create an edit you tend to work backwards and strip down the track to its basic structure, take parts to make longer and parts to add fx etc. Coming up with original tracks, or using a sample in one tends to be the opposite, building the track up around the melody/sample.

What makes for a bad edit? How about a good edit? In my opinion, a bad edit is one that takes away the things that made the original so special or adds nothing to it. A good edit can be something as simple as a DJ friendly intro and outro. The best edits are when the energy of the original is transformed into something completely different.

What are some potential upcoming edits you're contemplating at the moment? I'm currently working on some more Motown edits. They take time. You can't rush with Motown.

What are your thoughts on the disco resurgence? Disco never really felt like it disappeared to me. Its always been interpreted in different ways but it's great that its finally almost back to how it was.

If you could choose anyone living or dead to make an edit of your work, who would it be? Larry Levan.

What are your top 3 favorite edits of all time?
GQ - Lies (Theo Parrish Ugly Edit #7)

Moodymann - I Can't Kick This Feeling When It Hits

Diana Ross - Love Hangover (DJ Apt One Edit)

Listen to Edit Murphy on Pulse Radio