Top New Release: Róisín Murphy - Róisín Machine

If you search TZA, you’ll see that I’ve only ever posted videos by Róisín Murphy.  I’ve never had the chance to see her perform live!  I won’t get into her bio (check her out on Wikipedia), but I have been following her since the mid 2000’s, and with every album I've become even more infatuated.  Her music (and style) is always a step ahead of others, showing that she’s only improving with age.  This new album just takes it to a new level.  Check out some clips of articles, a video (repeat), and listen to the full album below!

"Over the course of the last 30 years, Róisín Murphy has made enough classics to fill up the Top 40 of a more fabulous world. To paraphrase the one-time announcer of this awful world’s pop countdown, Murphy has kept her couture-shod feet on the ground and kept reaching for the stars—though her idea of a star is more Cosey Fanni Tutti dancing to Sylvester than your average pop idol. The Irish singer-songwriter’s fifth solo album, Róisín Machine, might seem in some ways like the same old song and dance. But it’s done with such impeccable elan that she has turned the old nightlife songbook into a book of revelations."

(Via Róisín Murphy: Róisín Machine Album Review | Pitchfork.)

 "A grimy and glamorous pastiche of self-mythologising disco, nostalgic British club music, post-punk iconography and Murphy’s ever-sharp hooks, Róisín Machine — which was started over a decade ago, after the release of 2007’s Gaga blueprint Overpowered, but was pre-empted by the torch-singer techno of 2015’s Hairless Toys and 2016’s Take Her Up To Monto — is relentless and brilliant, serving as both a document of Murphy’s youth exploring the underground clubs of Manchester and Sheffield and a love letter to the transformative power of a dancefloor.

 Made largely in collaboration with Murphy’s long-time friend and collaborator Richard Barratt, aka DJ Parrot, Róisín Machine feels like the defining document of Murphy’s solo career so far, casting the 47-year-old as a mysterious, magnetic club denizen, the kind of person you might whisper about obsessively over the course of a lifetime without ever meeting. She switches guises constantly, and yet the record is in thrall of her, obsessed with Murphy as both a musician and a mythological figure almost to a fault. Occasionally an underappreciated or overlooked figure, Róisín Machine fits 20-plus years of overdue idol worship into an hour of tight, bone-rattling club music."

(Via Róisín Murphy is still doing it her way | The FADER.)

"What do you think of the disco revival that’s been happening this year, with the new albums from Dua Lipa and Jessie Ware?

‘Lovely, good for them – but I’m back to snatch their wigs! To me, disco can be anything. It is a disco record I’ve made, but my idea of it is very broad. I can easily think of Depeche Mode and Sylvester as disco.’"

(Via Róisín Murphy on the disco revival: “I’m back to snatch Dua Lipa and Jessie Ware’s wigs!”.)

Just some bonus, gay Q&A for ya:

"I’d like to get very gay right off the top. I was wondering if you tend to get more interest from Queer publications like this one, or are you finding you’re talking to more mainstream publications as your career evolves? Do you notice a shift in demographics with each release?

Well, I guess I have different kinds of demographics in different countries. I do have a very strong gay following across the board. But in some places it’s really gay, like in America, for example. When I played there, it was like wall to wall, lads with their tops off in their underwear. Everywhere. Hardcore! I love it, mate.

You know, the thing about the last tour that I did in America – I didn’t do big venues or anything, but it really made me aware of having to be on top of my game with the singing and all that! Róisín Murphy by Adrian Samson

Why? You mean because with the Gays you have all those other divas to compete with?

Well, just being in a completely gay environment, you know, completely mad people hanging out and sweaty bodies everywhere, and they’re loving it. It’s such a beautiful thing and it becomes a full circle for me, because I was always brought up to understand that the music I was into had been created by gay and marginalized cultures.

So, to then be embraced in that same kind of culture, I mean, maybe I’m not mainstream gay culture in America, I’m not sure if I even have the possibility to be, but certainly the, the parties that I’ve played there have been pretty full on!"

(Via OMG, a Q&A with Róisín Murphy (2020) | OMG.BLOG.)