RÓISÍN MURPHY

i don't think this is going to end up replacing hairless toys as my favourite of her solo albums but it still really rules

also the album version of "jealousy" definitely loses a lot by only being 4 minutes and just fading out

we already have plenty of long versions of it, and the album version is so exciting, it's a joyous climax that the album has built up to 💃💃

new to me, B-sides from the Overpowered era:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CEgNB8TZ64

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVCARpAsG-g

this is a disappointment for me tbh. i think i got very attached to a few of the remixes (the cosmodelica remix of murphy's law is stunning, incredible piano lines everywhere) and the album versions are all letting me down.

Her best album since Overpowered, despite a couple okay things.

i'm really baffled about the version of 'incapable' on here when the 'extended edit' is clearly superior. it's not even that much longer (:30 or so), it just gets the timing right on introducing the elegaic chords in the bridge and is generally more tightly structured.

'we got together' is .. bad imo.

sorry don't mean to shit up this thread, maybe it will grow on me :|

I imagine the shorter edit of “Incapable” being a matter of vinyl formatting, but I really wouldn’t know

oh i hadn't noticed the way the album version of "incapable" has those synths come in during the chorus instead of the bridge, really weird

i'm not exactly sure which "extended edit" you mean though, the original "edit" was 3:30 which is actually shorter than the album version, but it works better

the biggest problem i have with the short "jealousy" is the fade-out because it really needs the definitive ending of the original to close out the album properly when it's such an explosion of energy

Discogs user notes "Incapable and Game Changer are both slightly longer than their CD and digital counterparts, as they fade out cleanly instead of segueing into the next track."

Game Changer feels a little like a throwback to Ruby Blue imo, with the vocal melody in the verse being sketched in the margins, and the syncopate-y handclap.

We Got Together is one of my favourite tracks on this, like the massive WHOMP! of the bass just does something to my lizard brain.

But, y'know, hey, people like different things in music.

Kingdom of Ends and We Got Together both make the album better IMO simply by virtue of mixing things up a bit.

“kingdom of ends” is one of her very best songs imo

I really like Jessie Ware so I don't say this to denigrate but this is better. Jessie is only like 95% fabulous whereas Roisin is like 120%

different flavors of fabulousness imo

Roisin Murphy is more of a person or personage while Jessie Ware strives for and achieves disco-era anonymity.

the continuous mix nature of this record is what sends it over for me. this is why i can't really knock the album edit of "incapable" (not that i'm a good enough listener to really distinguish how it's different from the single edit? which i don't remember if i've even heard) bc the focus of the album is not about songs working in isolation but songs working on each other

sorry if this is rockist of me

the arrangement is prob altered bc at the point where "incapable" lands in the tracklisting you're not exactly in the mood for a song to build up gradually, just start rockin' those synths if you got em

First 3 songs here represent her best work since Overpowered imo

RA Exchange 527: Roisin Murphy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEXEk7QVba4

haven't seen brad in the RYM shoutbox calling this AOTY yet. therefore unsure whether to give it a listen

j/k let's go

the focus of the album is not about songs working in isolation but songs working on each other

yeah exactly. if you're frustrated that this version isn't 12 minutes long, you can get that elsewhere; meanwhile, hear this other song!

tbf if you can pull off an Introspective then it's no bad thing. but that requires you to only have six songs ready

holy fucking shit the intro of Kingdom Of Ends is a cover of Hawkwind's Assault & Battery!!!!!

LJ be aware that there are 8-12 minute original versions of most of the songs here, and several of them have 45-minute-long remix suites by the co-author. if you love the album versions you might need medical supervision to listen further

this album is cannily not going for big catharsis or hugeness, it's playing a much slower and subtler game. intriguing. production is v on-point

like, for all that this is a slow-burn tease, there are engaging little details that keep me alert. currently the bassline to Shellfish Mademoiselle is that little detail

good album. first half >> second half

yes, hard agree there

this album is super cool

Would also,like to say that my 7yo daughter also being a huge Roisin fan is one of the joys of my life: watching the home performances and dancing round together to the new album. a+.

that is adorable and very sweet. one of my most cherished memories from that age is hearing Thriller for the first time and jumping around to it with my parents. probably very common to remember and treasure the records that made us RLLY WANNA DANCE when we were super little :))

Nobody in my family asked me what I was playing, even though one by one as they entered the room they started dancing.

Róisín’s hosting a Tim’s Twitter Listening Party thing on the album as I type.

So here we are, an album listening party. Although this record draws on disco, dance club culture, past present and future. It is very much an album, deliberately so. The songs have been edited, dubbed out and segued together to create an album listening experience.

It’s not a record for the club, it’s for this purpose that we are about to partake in……

Many of you will know that I made this record with my old friend, long time music brother Richard Barratt aka Parrot aka Crooked Man. We also had Fat Dave at the controls and on guitar and keys. Let’s just take a moment to big him up.

In so many ways this record represents a return to something for me. To Sheffield, to the music scene that made me, a return to the soul of the dance floor.

Finally, I get an intro suitable for a queen. I feel my story is still untold but I’ll make my own happy ending. Mission statement for sure.

Simulation

Written ten years ago, released on Permanent Vacation in 2012. The backing track for Simulation was given to me straight after I finished Overpowered, along with a handful more. Most of which have actually found their way on the album, that is to say this record was already a pretty fully-formed entity ten years ago. It was there on paper.

The high hats!

Simulation is one of my favourite things that I’ve ever done. It’s spectral in its range of frequencies. There’s real dark darkness and real ecstatic euphoria.

Aye not a bad way to make an entrance! #youalrightlove?

Taking you out of the sweat up and over into a kind of utopia. Love yourself people!! 🥰

Kingdom Of Ends

One of the last things completed for the album, certainly tinged with the feelings of the moment, it having been written in lockdown. There’s a theme going through the record ‘is that all there is?’ Not very original, but prescient.

This song is a kind of dedication to Mark Fisher, I’ve used many of the phrases he uses in his writing in this song and his pre-occupations of the end of desire and the end of capitalism. I’m deliberately trying to channel Bryan Ferry in places here.

Mark Fisher had me as the last princess of glam. Which perhaps I am?

My manager is also a fantastic singer and she can heard in the ecstatic backing vocals. Lockdown brought some of the best out of all of us.

Parrot in my hanging chair back in the day! #SHEFFEEELLLL #TimsTwitterListeningParty pic.twitter.com/ILV6kBrJuf

— Róisín Murphy (@roisinmurphy) October 8, 2020

Something More

Lovely new intro on this version, what what??!
And the new Exorcist tubular bells I love

This is the only time I've ever asked someone to write for me. To be honest Murphy’s Law was such a good song, I wanted to take the pressure off myself by having something to match it, to balance the record. So I asked Amy Douglas to write me a song about exponential need, about wanting more and more and more.

This wonderful song was written overnight and couldn’t have been more perfect for me. It’s like having a perfect dress made. It’s couture bitches. I love you @AmyDouglasSings xxx

Shellfish Mademoiselle

What a funky funky funky Sheffield beat! I’d love to hear this on a system with friends. Our icecream’s not melted yet kids. It really is delightfully feminine this song, what a light touch Parrot has.

Squeezed a bit of microdosing in there.
Of course I wrote the lyric ‘I shouldn’t really be dancing at a time like this’ it was written in lockdown. How dare you sentence me to a lifetime without dancing, it’s a cliche I know, but hey it works......

Anyway it’s a metaphor. Full of innuendo. Wink wink. Dancing and loving. It’s about getting as much of that as possible because life’s too short.

Incapable

I always call Incapable ‘she’. It’s such a characterful track and the music is so perfectly balanced. It has great equilibrium.

It took Parrot a while to finish this cos he couldn’t imagine people dancing to a bird singing ‘I’m incapable’ !! But you know I always like to bring little EXTRA

Anyway what was I saying about her? She is rather conceited, she is saying things they don’t usually say in pop songs. It says ‘I got away with it, I’m unscathed’

We Got Together

This was a chant I did over the end of Flash of Light live. Parrot heard it and liked it and built this track around the lyric idea.

I get so much from that one little bit of lyric, we got together-that’s great, we got together in the past-I wish we could get tougher now, we all got together, we got toggery didn’t we? Or am I just imagining it?

......The meaning shifts. It’s almost impossible not to do the running man when this one comes on

But incredibly brave choices Dave and Parrot made in the studio when they built this track, what swagger!

When we found a home for this record. This delightful man believed in us and hey, look where we are. @generalisation ❤️ pic.twitter.com/aUuZd7mTmx

— Róisín Murphy (@roisinmurphy) October 8, 2020

Murphy's Law

What can I say about Murphy’s Law? I reckon it’s a stone cold classic, lads. The original version of this we were uncomfortable with, due to the high cheese levels. Nervous I should say. Although we know we were onto something good.....

Originally it was in a higher key. Wondered if that was the problem so I asked Parrot to transpose the whole thing down. I copied transposed vocal and replaced it, but we never could quite let go of this gender-bent transposed vocal. What you hear now is a blend of the two.

It just needed something a little ‘off’ to make it feel right. I love how it doesn’t take its too seriously and just sits back and relaxes in the groove.

Although we are in borderline cheese territory, somehow it remains super-cool. And if there’s going to be a law, why not Murphy’s Law? Sebi created these backing vocals, shout out going to the Big Wallop.

Game Changer

This is one of my favourites. We’re in the funky room, people are jazz dancing doing the splits and spinning on their backs. This album really is like a big building of rooms for having fun.

There is a gorgeous studio 54 space, there is a funky room, there is a UK bass sound system, there is a loft and there is a cellar - and the cellar is Sheffield. Pure and simple.

I guess it’s another song about resignation to one’s fate about succumbing, about playing with each other. I love this wailing backing vocal I managed to squeeze out, I was trying to channel Van Morrison.

Narcissus

With beautiful string arrangement by Eddie Stevens, shout going out to booze man Stevens

In the studio, it seemed the track made me think of the word Narcissus which I began to chant over it. I then had to go and look up the myth, it was then just a simple case of inhabiting the characters of Echo. I’m calling out to all those fabulous magnetic men in my life.

Not saying narcissist, just pronouncing it Narcisciss for some reason 🤔

Jealousy

Pitchfork said ‘…starts in thrall to that destructive emotion and stays there. "jealousy" she chants as if demanding her own humanity….’

What a stomper, they don’t come around like this too often, lads. This track is literally hysterical.
Get your roller-skates on and lets go round and round and round and round and round and round.

A lot of art is about an almighty struggle in the very soul of its creator, by the way. You alright, Sue?

And though this is an explosive end track, we are still left on the edge of our desire. Teetering on the edge of it. And the build is still going strong.

This is a simulation. This is a simulation.

thanks for taking note of all of these Sic!

I generally find those Tims Listening Parties irritating (they have a habit of taking over one's timeline) but these are wonderful insights into an amazing album.

This stuff seems to be getting a lot of traction in non-music-nerd settings, at least in my neighbourhood? Twice in the past few days, I've had to go by ~trouble spots for environmental sound~ (a builders' site on my road where they serenade the whole street with their music choices; an incredibly loud pumping exercise class that meets on top of the Common) and kind of bracing myself for the sensory onslaught and how bad it is going to be...

...and both spaces have beeen playing Roisin Murphy tracks the last times I have walked by? Which has been a really pleasant surprise when it's turned into music?

I've only gotten to the end of this once because I keep playing the first three tracks over and over

Hairless Toys finally clicked for me today. It was always my least favorite of her albums but today it sounds really damn good

Haven't followed Murphy closely but Narcissus > Jealousy bowled me over

I see now Narcissus was a 2019 single and that they pushed the strings to the intro (to get this onto dancefloors?). Brilliant track.

yes. i managed to play narcissus at the right moment in a set and it was all hands in the air.

An earlier version was out in 2017!

🎄Christmas has come early🎄
Murphy’s Law rules today @BBC6Music surrender to the cheeky bum wiggling wit and disco decadence! 💜 it ...
... join @laurenlaverne @maryannehobbs @shaunwkeaveny @steve_lamacq to hear more ... #sleighhomeravesafe https://t.co/Y7yiZVWfvw

— Nemone (@nemonemetaxas) December 1, 2020

New Crooked Man remix of Jealousy.

Mix for Mary Ann Hobbs yesterday:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q8x6

She's also "taking over" 6Music on Tuesday