31/10/2008

Lisbon last night


A picture of Roisin on the second night of her European tour, courtesy of João Salema.

Click here to check out a full set of pictures from the Lisbon show.

30/10/2008

Murphy vs Gaga

New York based Village Voice columnist Michael Musto has said that Lady Gaga is the new Roisin Murphy. Musto also argues that Roisin is the new Kylie.

Someone who couldn't agree less with Musto is music blogger Arjan Writes. Click here to read more!

29/10/2008

The set list!


This is it, the set list of Roisin's first European tour date. Picture courtesy of Electro_duende.

European tour kick off



Roisin kicked off her European Autumn tour in Malaga last night!

Can anyone tell me what the set list was? Please leave a comment! x

28/10/2008

Rolling Stone fashion shoot


When Roisin was in Milan for Fashion Week, photographer Marcus Mam shot a 4-page fashion portfolio for Rolling Stone Italy.

Thanks to Jo for the scans!

More Mansion pictures


Blog reader Kris was at Roisin's Mansion show and took some amazing pictures. Click here to check them out.

27/10/2008

Time Out NY

On the eve of her first US gig, Time Out NY got to interview Roisin and asked her about her favourites things:

It’s all too easy for pop music to go horribly wrong: One underwhelming chorus and your song turns from killer to filler; one wrong accessory (or lack thereof, if we’re talking underwear), and sassy becomes skanky. For a master class in how to do it right, just look at the fabulously, stylishly sexy disco queen Róisín Murphy, who’s making her long-awaited NYC solo live debut this week.

As half of Moloko, the Irish-born, smoky-voiced vixen scored a pair of classic Eurohits with 1999’s “Sing It Back” and 2001’s “The Time Is Now”; after the group broke up, she recorded 2005’s avant-pop Ruby Blue with electronica savant Matthew Herbert. Last year, Murphy released Overpowered, an intoxicating tour through various dance-music genres, from Moroder-style electroglide to Chic-infused disco. Neither record came out in the U.S., which speaks volumes about this country’s utter inability to take female pop musicians seriously.

It doesn’t help that Murphy, 35, is so hard to peg. She knowingly winks to high art (the video for “You Know Me Better,” for instance, is a tribute to Cindy Sherman) and sneaks in experimental touches in her sleek dance-pop, but she can also be earthily goofy in a manner not usually associated with women orbiting the fashion world (her latest single is a cover of Bryan Ferry’s “Slave to Love,” recorded for a Gucci ad). “Subversion is a fabulous tool in any kind of performance,” Murphy suggests. “To confound is just great. And it’s very easy for a woman in a way: Doing anything outside the box for a woman is kind like, ‘Whaaat?!?’ ”

Asked about her image, the singer is quick to correct the phrasing: “Not my image as such: the image. When I get dressed to go out and I get shot by a paparazzo, I didn’t dress for that photographer,” she continues, laughing, “I was living la vida Fellini. But then you have to put your sensitive little imagination in the brutal glare of reality.”

Performers famous for engaging in this tricky balancing act between the mundane and the outlandish are often tarred with a certain label, used as both praise and a put-down. But Murphy doesn’t care—or rather, she gleefully embraces the term. “People call me a diva, and I’m quite happy to accept that I am one,” she says. “Being a diva means creating complex stories that go beyond what people are expecting. Bring it on!”—EV

A few of Miss Murphy's favourites:

Dance-floor anthem
Jackie Moore: “This Time Baby”

Favorite music video
Björk: “All Is Full of love”
“For me, the pinnacle of the art form; it has been downhill ever since.”

Most underrated style moment
Margaret Thatcher’s bouffant

Most underrated music artist
“My Uncle Jim, pitch-perfect, band leader, player of every instrument, with a voice like thick, velvety Guinness.”

Most memorable live moment
“Seeing Sonic Youth in Manchester when I was 14. I can’t describe the joy of seeing Kim Gordon moshing with the boys and stage-diving.”

Favorite movies
The Night of the Hunter
The French Connection
Chinatown
Dead Ringers
Some Came Running
Underground
The Birds
Lawrence of Arabia

“Also, I love The Sopranos and The Wire as much as any movie, if not more.”

The Independent fashion talks

Carola Long from British newspaper The Independent interviewed Roisin during London Fashion week about fashion, calling her 'the poster girl of cutting edge-chic':

When I meet the singer Roisin Murphy at a café after the House of Holland show at London Fashion Week, it's hard not to feel as comparatively uncool and drably dressed as a policeman at the Notting Hill carnival. She is wearing a pink and grey shard-patterned sweatshirt by Vivienne Westwood, and huge vintage Courrèges sunglasses, although this is actually quite a subtle look by her striking standards.

The catwalk shows might be where we get a glimpse of what le beau monde will be wearing next season, but the outfits people create to watch the shows have become as diverting as the collections themselves. This season, in New York, Paris, London and Milan, the former Moloko frontwoman-turned-solo artist was the one capturing style spotters' imaginations with a succession of looks that sealed her reputation as a fashion maverick, or as one impressed fashion blogger put it, "an arch kookster".

As buyers, journalists and celebrities spilled out of the London shows wearing various takes on the season's unofficial uniform of peg trousers, ankle boots and oversized blazers, Murphy always stood out. Her fashion-week ensembles included a cropped leather jacket with exaggerated, shaggy fur shoulders (made by one of Gareth Pugh's assistants, Gemma Slack), a cream draped dress by Topshop Unique and bowler hat by New York milliner Ellen Christine, a Charles Anastase sailor-style coat with Hermès beret and gold YSL postcard-effect bag, and a puffy red satin dress by Lanvin with Tudor shoulders and a feather headdress by Stephen Jones.

Outdone only by her friend Kabir, a stylist who memorably rocked a furry bear headdress at some of the shows, Murphy's approach to fashion is brave and experimental; the opposite of just picking up on the season's trends. Later on in the evening, after we meet, she models in Naomi Campbell's Fashion For Relief charity show, strutting down the catwalk in a Westwood outfit alongside Vivienne and her husband Andreas Kronthaler. The designer rang Murphy after meeting her at a party, to which the 35-year-old singer wore a "fabulous green taffeta Westwood gown, mixed with a Calvin Klein bomber jacket", and asked her to appear. "She has the softest hands I've ever shaken," says Murphy, her Irish accent muffled by very un-fashion week mouthfuls of pasta and tomato sauce.

Murphy's whirlwind, one-woman-fashion-week round of the shows is also "window shopping", for her current tour, which began yesterday and will include the Brixton Academy. She is famed for her adventurous stage and video outfits, and says, "I have the wardrobe on stage with me and I change for almost every song." Inspiration for recent live outfits came from a Martin Margiela ensemble she wore with a Philip Treacy hat in the video for "Let Me Know", from her second album, Overpowered, in which she dances around a diner.

Murphy explains, "It consists of a sheer white body suit and a skirt that becomes a cape at the back. It has big white pointy shoulders," she adds, "and they became a bit of a thing with me. The main element I loved was the body suit, which I wear with a pair of trousers on stage and it creates a kind of modular system which hats, coats, shoulder pieces, gloves etc can be layered on top of. It's a very ingenious idea even if I do say so myself!" Murphy adds that her stage outfits are essential to her performance, "not to hide behind, but to say something about the song, and to express more intensity through the music. There's also a lot of narrative in the songs, sometimes it's literal – in "Checking Up On Me" I look over my glasses and strike a rock and roll pose – and sometimes it's more abstract.

"For me to go on stage just wearing jeans and a T-shirt would be dishonest. It would be like me saying, 'Oh I'm just like everybody else, you don't have to be scared of me.' I think that for everyone who loves what I do there are people who are intimidated by it." Certainly outfits such as the Gareth Pugh ridged white dress (think Stormtrooper meets armadillo) she wore to the shows in Paris, shortly after it had appeared on the catwalk, are exhilaratingly unusual rather than conventionally flattering. Even aged nine she had an exhibitionist streak, as demonstrated by the time she "went up to town and got my long blonde hair shaved into a marine cut". When she came home her dad started crying, but she "loved it – it was liberating".

Murphy attributes her love of clothes to her mum, whom she describes as a natural clothes horse. People in Dublin would approach her mum and ask for her autograph, mistaking her for Faye Dunaway (Murphy also bears a notable resemblance). The pair would go charity shopping together in posh areas of Manchester, where her family moved from Ireland when she was 12, and would snap up vintage Jaeger. She says, "If you can't afford designer labels, go to a charity shop and buy an old T-shirt because they only start to look good after 10 years. The whole thing of going to a high-street chain and buying a T-shirt in every colour just in case you might need it is incredibly wasteful. I think that idea has been forced down our throats a bit."

Away from fashion week and on the tour bus, doesn't Murphy ever feel the urge to sneakily pull on a tracksuit? It seems not. "I have two Margaret Howell plaid shirt dresses, they're my nighties," she says, "and I have Margiela mock cropped boots, they're my slippers. And I put my YSL mac on and that's my dressing gown. And if I'm really feeling rough I put sunglasses on as well. I have to think in terms of there might be fans waiting and I don't want to let them down." The sight of Murphy emerging from the tour bus in such an unremittingly stylish take on leisurewear is unlikely to disappoint.

NEW YORK!


Sorry for my absence over the weekend, but Roisin gave a spectacular show in New York on Friday.

The following review comes from the prestigious New York Times' art blog:

Not every CMJ debutante arrived in a beat-up old van (or, this year, by taxi from Williamsburg). Roisin Murphy, an electronica singer and songwriter who’s Ireland’s answer to the likes of Eurythymics or Goldfrapp, already has a sizable following at home, both as a solo performer and with her previous group Moloko, which was a duo with her ex-boyfriend. She made her United States debut as part of CMJ with a sold-out show at Mansion, the huge dance club in the space formerly used as Crobar, to an ecstatic audience of fans who knew every song.

Ms. Murphy brought a live band and subwoofer-pumping electronic tracks. She also had video, dancers and costume changes, from a skin-tight white top that revealed all to giant feathered contraptions and, rivalling Bjork’s famous swan, a fabric deer straddling her shoulders while she wore antlers on her head. It was the kind of extravaganza CMJ rarely sees.

Ms. Murphy deserves to get noticed in the United States. Her voice has some of Annie Lennox’s smokiness, suitable for come-ons or admonitions that she’s a “headstrong girl.” Ms. Murphy chose her producers well for her two solo albums “Ruby Blue” and “Overpowered,” getting crisp beats that dip into funk, electro, techno and rock and adding tricky flourishes to basic propulsion. And her lyrics put intelligent superstructures on typical club sentiments; “Primitive,” about unleashing animal instincts, turns to thoughts of evolution, all the way back to “the primordial soup.” It was bigtime pop that could teach a lot to some of CMJ’s cutesy electro hipsters.

...................


The set list of the show was as follows:

Cry Baby
You Know Me Better
Checkin' On Me
Dear Miami
Primitive
Ruby Blue
Movie Star
Forever More
Let Me Know
Overpowered
Tell Everybody
Ramalama (Bang Bang)


Click here to see Arjan Writes' photo report of Roisin's US debut. You can read his fantastic review here.

Arjan also reveals that Roisin will return to North America for a full tour in the Spring of 2009!

Thanks to Betty for the second picture!

23/10/2008

East Village Radio interview


New York DJ Brion Vytlacil will be interviewing Roisin on his East Village Radio show Future Music this Thursday, a day before Roisin's sell out concert on Friday.

Listeners will be able to hear a recording of the interview this Saturday, starting 6am EST via www.eastvillageradio.com.

Thanks to Andrew for the info & Betty for the picture!

Roisin on naked men

A little while ago OMG got to interview Roisin and also asked what naked man movie moment sticks out in her mind the most.

Click here to read her answer and see a strangely photoshopped image of Miss Murphy.

Dry your tears

Good news for all Polish devotees who missed out on a ticket a few weeks ago. Dry your tears, as Roisin's concert in Warsaw is now taking place in the Arena Ursynow. This means new tickets have come available.

Get your ticket here:

www.ticketpro.pl
www.eventim.pl
www.goodmusic.com.pl

22/10/2008

JD's birthday party



A video of Roisin performing at Jack Daniels' birthday party in Tennessee last week.

According to NME Roisin "played a show that included a cover of Bryan Ferry's 'Slave To Love', Tom Waits' 'Down In The Hole' and her own song 'Scarlett Ribbons', wearing a military-style blue suit and black top hat."

NEXT Cover Girl


Roisin is one the cover of New York gay magazine NEXT. The magazine also features the following interview:

It’s often said that it’s never as good as the first time, but for newcomers to pop singer Róisín Murphy (pronounced roy-sheen), the first time hearing her music is often as unusual as her electronic tracks themselves.

“Someone told me the other day that the first time they heard one of my songs, it was coming out of a drag queen’s mouth,” the Irish-born singer told Next from her flat in London.
While many may have heard Murphy before—either from a drag queen or on TV shows like So You Think You Can Dance or Grey’s Anatomy or on one of her popular YouTube videos—you’ll actually get to see her sing in person for the first time on October 24, when The Saint At Large presents her first American solo concert at Mansion.

“Oh, hell yes. I’m so ready—you bitches better be ready for me,” Murphy says enthusiastically when asked if she’s ready for her big debut. “I think we’re going to smash up your place. And there will be endless tears of joy and floods of emotion.”

But it’s not like Murphy is some amateur chanteuse. She released four albums as part of the electronic duo Moloko, which she formed with her then-boyfriend, Mark Brydon. After the break up of the band and the relationship, she recorded her first solo album, Ruby Blue, with Matthew Herbert, who uses everyday objects to create music.
“He was always asking me to bring things in from my home and he built the sound out of those things like bowls and statues and brass mice and cutlery,” she remembers about making the 2004 disc.
But she took a different tack with Overpowered, her 2007 album that has been a smash in Europe but isn’t available stateside until next year.

“I wanted to make a disco record,” she says. “Overpowered is like with a million different people and writing and producing and mixing with someone else.”

Maybe that’s why the album sounds like an eclectic collection of cutting-edge electronic pop and dance tracks, but with a cohesive vision, mostly because Murphy co-wrote and produced all the songs. One minute it’s the electronic funk of “You Know Me Better” and the next it’s the classic disco of “Footprints” and the old-school house feel of “Cry Baby.” If you had to concoct a formula of the musical elements gay men are supposed to love—sassy female singer, electronic beats, over-the-top production—it would be Overpowered.

“I don’t have to become [a gay icon]—I am one!” she jokes about all the gay fans waiting for her in the States.

Part of what will attract the gay audience is Murphy’s extreme wardrobe. Known for wearing bizarre couture concoctions on stage, in videos and in person, Murphy even does interviews wearing a “fairly avant-garde cardigan.” Just check out the bizarre and fascinating music video for her song “Movie Star” (YouTube it, bitch!) where she dresses in a number of outlandishly fabulous getups and cavorts with drag queens, freaks and an oversized lobster.

Now her fans are helping to fill her wardrobe. “I get so many wonderful things,” she trills. “When I was in Romania, they gave [me] a big bag of clothes. Gold leather dresses and just beautiful black dresses and these alien holes in the back. People ask me what I’m wearing and I just look at them sarcastically and say ‘Romanian couture.’”

Murphy says that for her American debut, she changes at least one part of her outfit for each song, so the first time you see Róisín it will be a visual and aural assault—and certainly the best time of all.

From nextmagazine.com

21/10/2008

A short Fashion Week interview



This London Fashion week special by Natasha Gilbert features a short interview with Roisin.

18/10/2008

Sparro & Murphy

In an interview with Out in the City, Sam Sparro has spoken about a possible collaboration with Roisin Murphy:

Roisin Murphy said 'Let's do something' and I'd love to do that.

OMG interview


Roisin spoke to the US gay blog OMG about her upcoming show in New York and European tour:

What do you have planned for the upcoming shows in New York and Europe? What will you wear on stage? It’s a seven piece band including me and my two beautiful backing singers. In New York the staging needs to be simple, in Europe the full production shows will go far beyond what audiences have seen from us previously. With a totally different set of songs will come a new narrative. I will wear what seems appropriate to me, not sure yet. New things are on the way to me any day soon. I can feel it.

Click here to read the complete interview.

Movie Star - remix video



Roisin devotee Cedric created this black and white video for the Junior Sanchez Remix of Movie Star.

16/10/2008

Zoo Magazine - reminder


Don't forget that the current edition of Zoo Magazine is now on sale and features a 22-page Roisin Murphy photo shoot and interview.

Click here for information on where to buy the magazine.

Also, on the website of photographer Glen Erler you can see more pictures from the shoot.

Erler named his Roisin Murphy project 'In and around a room'. Here's what he has to say about it:

I was recently given the opportunity to photograph Roisin Murphy and as most of my recent work has been about photographing people in their own personal environment, I thought it would be interesting to photograph Roisin within the confinement of a small single room and its immediate surroundings of which neither of us had any personal connection. These images are the result of that single day in a single space and its surroundings.

View more at www.glenerler.com.

Another promo shot


Another promotional shot for Roisin's first show in New York, taken by Karl Giant.

15/10/2008

Twiggy's Frock Exchange


Last night Roisin appeared on the BBC program Twiggy's Frock Exchange, where she gave away a pair of Gucci heels to a lucky member of the audience.

If you missed the show you can watch it on the BBC iPlayer. The items starts at 46 minutes into the show.

Pink & Red


Here it is, the absolutely gorgeously pink & red promo poster for Roisin's first proper show in the US of A.

14/10/2008

Mansion - Behind the scenes



To promote Roisin's upcoming show, the New York venue Mansion has posted this exclusive behind the scenes footage of Roisin posing for a few pictures.

Movie Star US release

Don't forget that Movie Star is released on US iTunes this week, ahead of Roisin's show in New York on October 24.

If you haven't downloaded the song yet then go to the iTunes music store now.

Polish cry babies


Blog reader Agata from Poland sent me this pictures of a box of tissues, standing on the counter of a ticket office. She explains:

Roisin is going to play a concert in November and the tickets were sold out over a month before the show. That's very fast. I attach a picture which I took yesterday when I went to a ticket point. There's a box of tissues on the counter and it's written there 'We're very sorry, but there are no more tickets for Roisin Murphy'. People indeed cried a lot. I see that for the first time.

So if any of you Polish Roisin devotees did get hold of a ticket then count yourself very lucky!

13/10/2008

Diesel XXX pictures


On Saturday Roisin attended Diesel XXX - The Creative Experiment at The O2 Arena in London.

Thanks to Betty for the pictures.

Bulgarian tour poster


Blog reader Stan sent me this scan of a poster for Roisin's gig in the Bulgarian capital Sofia next month.

09/10/2008

Style and fashion history

My Fashion Life has admitted they love Roisin's style:

Known for her outlandish stage outfits, Roisin Murphy has been compared to Gwen Stefani and Kylie musically but is like none other when it comes to her personal style.

Her approach to dressing is not unlike her approach to music. She writes and produces her own music and styles herself both on and off camera. Courted by designer mavericks such as Gareth Pugh and Viktor and Rolf, Roisin is muse to Roksanda Illinic and was chosen by Gucci Creative Director Frida Gianni to record a cover of Slave to Love for a Gucci men’s fragrance campaign.

Murphy’s tall, lithe frame and porcelain perfect skin complement her theatrical, eccentric and downright fabulous wardrobe.

In her videos and album artwork, Roisin appears to have emerged from a child’s dress-up box. Whether in a clown suit or channeling Bonnie and Clyde, all eyes are on her. Collaborating with graphic designer/artist Scott King and photographer Jonathan de Villiers on her recent shoot for You Know Me Better, Roisin’s creative visual flair is clearly evident.

A mainstay at this year’s LFW, Roisin’s public image is as distinctive as her personality. Volumous shoulders and sleeves, structurally interesting hats and bold dimensional prints are set off with a quintessentially British sense of humour. Roisin Murphy is anything but boring. More important though, she doesn’t take herself seriously and has fun with fashion. For that, we take our hat off to you Miss Murphy. Love Your Style!

---------------
In the meantime Vogue.co.uk has marked Roisin wearing one of Victor & Rolf's lighting rig dresses as an historic fashion event.

This is what Roisin herself had to say about wearing the dress during a photo shoot in London last year:

"I thought years ago how great it would be to be able to take a lighting rig around with you, because good lighting is better than a facelift."

08/10/2008

Electronic Beats interview

Roisin has spoken to Electronic Beats about song writing, collaborating and the interaction between fashion and performance. She says that "without comedy there can't be any tragedy" in her shows.

Click here to watch the interview.

On the tour & single


I've had word from Roisin's tour manager and can reveal that the Autumn shows will be a whole new set of different songs from what anyone has seen over the Summer. Very exiting indeed!

The UK release date for the double a-side Movie Star/Slave to Love is not known yet. However, Movie Star will see a US release on iTunes this Monday, October 14, before Roisin's show in New York on the 24th October.

07/10/2008

Fit for comfort

Click here to go to the Soup Served photostream on Flickr to see a few more pictures of Roisin wearing the black and white Gareth Pugh creation.

Are those boots really made for walking?

CollegeOTR interview

Once upon a time Roisin Murphy was the frontwoman behind Moloko, a musical duo comprised of her and then-boyfriend Mark Brydon, who she met by saying, “Do you like my tight sweater? See how it fits my body.” It wasn’t the first time the Fashion Rocks model and artist had tried the line, but it was the first time it worked. The rest is history.

Now, Roisin Murphy is reintroducing herself as a solo dance pop artist, with the album she described to CollegeOTR as an “emotional disco record,” Overpowered. When asked how her solo project differs from Moloko, she told OTR, “It’s still kind of mining the modernist landscape of music. I’m very much into modern sounds and pushing things forward. I’ve been developing my voice because I started as a non-singer… mostly it was different working with lots of people instead of just one person.”

Murphy worked with several producers on Overpowered and collaborated “50-50” on songwriting for the album, taking inspiration from topics which had attracted her curiosity like philosophy and economics. Her new single “Movie Star,” which resonates with disco vocal stylings over hypnotic electro-pop, will be released on iTunes October 14th and is sure to become a hit with the club kids.

Known for her bold, almost sculptural aesthetic, Roisin Murphy allows fashion to figure importantly in the “Movie Star” music video, which in spite of its terribly inane introductory skit is an avant-garde visual delight, from the costuming of Roisin and her cohorts to a cut of the singer being humped by a man in a lobster suit. Murphy told OTR the significance of clothing to her, saying, “I’m very playful and pretty fearless. I’m certainly very inclined to dress myself. I think that’s a very important thing to hold dear to you, to choose your clothes. That’s my thing, I dress myself…. I love the way it can help me say more.”

Taken from CollegeOTR.

02/10/2008

Paris Match


Two more pictures from Betty of Roisin out and about in Paris: at the Kisa dinner and the Martin Margiela show

01/10/2008

Roisin in Pugh


A nice picture of Roisin wearing the Gareth Pugh dress she wore in Paris a few days ago.

Initially I used this picture for a new blog banner, but then I decided I missed the old one so I've put it back up. I guess a change isn't a always an improvement.

Thanks to Betty!