Thunderclap Murphy is the performing name of Aidan Murphy, a musician based in Dublin, Ireland, who builds live ambient music in front of an audience. He plays acoustic instruments, loops them live and layers them into a warm, slow-moving sound that fills a room and then thins back to quiet.
Every piece is made in the room as people listen, so there is a performance to watch being made. Hear a full performance.
Twenty-five years playing and running Irish venues
Aidan has worked in Irish music since the late 1990s, as a performer, arranger and live sound engineer. He wrote and arranged for a five-year string-quartet concert series, the Bamboo Sessions, which began at the Sugar Club and finished at the John Field Room in the National Concert Hall.
Where the live ambient work came from
Aidan began performing as Thunderclap Murphy in 2017, playing live-looped sets in streets, cafés and festivals, and co-hosting spoken-word nights in Dublin and once at Glastonbury.
Alongside the performing, he spent years teaching and running inclusive music workshops, including weekly sessions for children with profound disabilities through Music Generation. That work taught him to make music that asks nothing of the people in the room and holds an audience of any age.
Songs under his own name
Aidan also writes and records songs built around voice and words, separate from the live ambient performances. His catalogue runs to more than thirty original songs. The 2024 recording “Dragonfly Blue” pairs his own writing with a live string quartet. You can hear the recorded work on Bandcamp.
Biographies and downloadable photographs for programmes and press are in the Press Kit.