|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Roisin Murphy (UK)
|
|
|
June 12, 20:00
YotaSpace 
 Murphy's vocation wasn't an obvious path for her. As a child, she didn't like singing. Later she enrolled at art college in Sheffield and it was there, at a party in 1994, that she met Mark Brydon, the other half of Moloko. She approached him and asked, "Do you like my tight sweater?" The chat-up line would become the title of Moloko's first album. The band released three more albums and reached world fame with "The Time Is Now" and "Sing It Back", remixes of which have featured on more than 100 compilation albums.
Even at the height of Moloko's success, Murphy didn't feel like it was a career. "It felt like an expression of the relationship that I was in," she says. "I took it really for granted. I woke up in the morning, I was in Moloko; Mark was beside me in the bed." It was only when Moloko started to wind down that Murphy realised how much singing meant to her. "I think it cemented some kind of sense of "Oh, Lord, I really love doing this."
Murphy started working on her first solo album, Ruby Blue, straight after the band split up. "We did the last show at the Brixton Academy; the next day I was in the studio with Matthew Herbert," she says. Matthew encouraged Murphy to bring typically non-musical items like notebooks into the studio and use them in musical ways; the results were first released as three limited-edition vinyl EPs, Sequins #1, Sequins #2, and Sequins #3.
In 2005, Moloko's label, Echo, released the EPs as the full-length album “Ruby Blue”. A minor success, Ruby Blue helped carve a name for her as a solo artist and in 2006 EMI signed her. In spring 2006 Ruby Blue was released in the U.S. Overpowered, which featured productions by Bugz in the Attic and Groove Armada members and some of Murphy's most pop-oriented songs to date, arrived in late 2007.
On January 10, 2008, Overpowered was nominated for the Choice Music Prize in the Republic of Ireland; the award is given each year to the Irish artist who has proved to produce a critically acclaimed album.
Murphy's two solo albums were produced in very different ways. "The first one was a more experimental process, whereby you just go into the studio and see what happens," she says. "The second one is a more determined outcome."
For Overpowered, Murphy went back to her musical roots in Sheffield and listened to disco records with DJ friends. The outcome is full of house, pop and electro music with beats from the '80s. She calls it disco but doesn't limit it to the Saturday Night Fever variety.
"Any kind of dance music that's very functional on the one hand and emotional on the other becomes disco to me." Murphy likes the contradiction of being happy on the dance floor while listening to a sad song. "This idea behind the song may be very sad but we've all felt it so there is a kind of joy in that connection between everybody in the club," she says.
During the late 2000s and early 2010s, she issued a string of singles, EPs and collaborations, starting with 2009's garage-house single "Demon Lover" (which was released the same day Murphy announced she was pregnant with her first child). "Orally Fixated," another collaboration with Bugz in the Attic's Seiji, arrived that November, and "Momma's Place" followed in January 2010. That year, she also made guest appearances on Crookers' album Tons of Friends, and David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's collaboration Here Lies Love, and worked with the Dutch DJ Mason, singer/actor Tony Christie and the Feeling in 2011. She returned in 2012 with a trio of singles: the David Morales-produced "Golden Era" in May, the sleekly disco-tinged "Simulation" in August, and "Flash of Light," a collaboration with Luca C & Brigante, in October. Over the next two years, she worked with producers including Boris Dlugosch, Hot Natured, and Freeform, and also released the EP Mi Senti, a collection of Italian-language songs inspired by singers such as Mina. Late in 2014, "Invisions" - another collaboration with Luca C & Brigante - arrived.
Early in 2015, the single "Gone Fishing" heralded the release of Murphy's first full-length in eight years. Hairless Toys, a more personal set of songs drawing inspiration from sources including Paris Is Burning, the 1990 documentary of New York City's ball culture and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender people who created it, was released in May 2015.
The release of a new Roisin Murphy album is always an event for fans of forward-thinking electronic pop, and even more so considering the eight-year gap between Overpowered and its follow-up, Hairless Toys. Along with starting a family, Murphy spent that time experimenting and collaborating; between all of her one-off singles, EPs, and cameos, she appeared on well over an album's worth of music.
On the rest of Hairless Toys, she casts a similarly understated spell that feels significantly different from the shapeshifting she perfected with Moloko and on her first two solo albums. The effect is sophisticated but stays away from the artistic graveyard of tastefulness on "Evil Eyes," where an earworm melody and irresistible groove are bold but not flashy. Similarly, "Exploitation" could have easily been a three-minute single, but the way it unfolds in a sensuous nine-and-a-half-minute haze is more luxurious and ambitious. Since this is a Róisín Murphy album, there are still plenty of quirks - note the blobby synth bass and waggish backing vocals on "Uninvited Guest" - yet they don't detract from the meditative vibe. Interestingly, this cohesive mood allows more facets of her personality-packed voice to emerge. There's a newfound tenderness that feels descended from Mi Senti, Murphy's Italian-language EP that paid homage to singers such as Mina with a similar openness and vulnerability. She expands on it in fascinating and affecting ways, whether on the bruised title track, the nostalgia-free reminiscences of "House of Glass," or the gorgeous, aching "Exile," a dreamy bit of torchy twang that sounds like Dusty Springfield on Mars. "I'll be back with a vengeance," she purrs, and it's this kind of emotional complexity that makes Hairless Toys a welcome return and Murphy's most satisfying album yet.
More info
|
|
|
|
|
The virtual community for English speaking expats and Russians
