Irish eyes are smiling
Travelling
is commonplace for seasoned musician /performer, Roisin Murphy.
She’s developed into a deft solo artist since her split
with boyfriend and collaborator Mark Brydon. Together they made
up the hugely successful trip-hop dance outfit Moloko who crafted
the catchy 'Sing It back' and 'The Time is Now' dance-floor hits.
So successful has her sophomore album release –
Overpowered - been (following on from Ruby Blue
a sexy, disco- pop, velveteen offering) she’s wanted on
the bill of every major festival in Europe until August. That
is of course, notwithstanding her latest frolic in Oz for the
V Festival tour circuit and her own individual side shows to supplement
her time here.
In fact she’s much more accustomed now to
clicking her high-fashion heels and finding herself in a different
country each week.
“They can be very surprising things festivals
some of the festivals, we played as Moloko were pivotal in breaking
into certain countries and you don’t even know you’re
doing it,” she said. “You land somewhere go on and
do the gig and at the end of it you’ve had such an amazing
response it really can change things for you.”
Chatting to Roisin, it’s easy to get a sense
of her approach to life. She gives the impression she’s
laid back and bothered by, not much at all really. She calmly
stopped the interview a few minutes into it where I was only to
hear on the other end of the receiver clip- clopping through her
apartment. I find out later she was off to the bathroom only to
return to say she probably couldn’t go while she was speaking
on the phone. Moving on from that ‘wee’ drama, she
qualifies her desire to come to Australia with solid reflection
on the good time she’s had here previously.
“I’m looking forward to coming over
because of the sense of freedom sense of being whoever you want
to be. There’s a sense of ‘no judgement’ sense
of frontier of the world in a way, just like you can always have
such a good craic [good time],” she said jovially.
Truth be told, Australia would be one of Roisin’s
preferred places to live if only it wasn’t so far from the
rest of the Murphy clan. An independent woman from a young age,
she’s self assured and her Irish humour must surely have
assisted propel her from the party districts of Sheffield to the
seductive disco halls she frequents globally, but that is what
she considers to have been the time in her life where she really
learned a lot about the music she wanted to be making.
“I’ve probably learned more about music
through that scene than I have through musicians though, I still
learn through musicians but particularly in understanding lineage
of music – dance (house) music has taught me a lot,”
she said. Understanding the lineage of music has no doubt come
in handy when penning the latest tracks to make up the Overpowered
release. One in particular is a favourite to perform at the moment
being Let me know.
“Let
me know – is amazing because now we’ve fused it with
the sample that it’s cut from which is Dtrain’s ‘Keep
on’, so when I’m performing it we’ve have the
first sample of Dtrain then – Let me know on top of that.
It’s very emotional because kids who are 14 or 15 are coming
along now who haven’t a clue who Dtrain are and then I’ve
got the 30, 35 year olds who do and they recognise it and get
into it,” she said.
As well as the emotion of the crowd, Roisin draws
on her reserves of energy to perform. Not to mention doing a hell
of a lot of remembering (loose choreography, reams of lyrics and
lighting changes) all of which demands a levels of dexterity and
poise and for her to be in a place in her head where it’s
all just happening without her thinking heavily about it. “I
mean I had an eye injury recently and I could have – kicked
myself which would have been terrible cos I would have an eye
injury as well as a kicking injury but it showed me that you have
to be spatially aware,” she said wryly.
“Some people ask me if it’s an ego
trip too and to be honest with you, you haven’t even got
time to think about your ego you’re more a vessel for all
this information and feeling it’s just an utter sense of
rightness. This is you at your purest form in your most right
place, I’m not the fittest person in the world it’s
a lot about stamina too when you’ve got the stamina to keep
going that helps,” she added. While she hopes to bring some
of that ‘rightness’ to her performances during her
time in Oz she’s also just looking forward to the opportunity
to be with the band touring.
“ I just love the aspect of rolling into
a town, kind of like when you’re child and when you’re
always with the gang’ and you just roll in and think ‘we
come here’ and then we change the atmosphere, and just go
around as if we run the place,” she say’s jokingly.
With the unrelenting festival schedule ramping up post Australia
Roisin will be off with the band to Russia, Luxembourg and Holland
she looks forward to each unique experience that will befall her.
“Festivals are all different in themselves
you can be playing inside a massive aircraft hanger next you can
be outside in a field god knows where and then you might be the
next night in a fort in eastern Europe all very different from
each other, but that’s really good for the band good for
the group mentality to push em,” she said.
“It pushes us to the limits of what we can
do by landing somewhere different and having to adapt, that really
pushes us and that’s healthy for the band.”
Catch Roisin Murphy when she performs at the remaining
V Festivals in Melbourne and Perth; or for a more intimate encounter
get along to one of her solo performances for the following dates:
April 1 – The Tivoli, Brisbane
April 2 – The Metro, Sydney
April 4 - Billboard, Melbourne
Ruth Bailey
