Roisin MurphyHairless Toys
PIAS / Mushroom

- When you think of the term “dance floor diva”, who does your mind conjure up? Madonna? Cher? Lady GaGa? Some others of a certain generation would immediately think of the late Donna Summer or -soon to be performing again in Sydney- the iconic Grace Jones. So where does the name of Irish singer-songwriter Róisín Murphy sit? Fifteen years ago she was the voice of smooth and groovy turn of the century duo Moloko (with her then partner Mark Brydon) and when that romantic pairing ended, she went solo with two acclaimed albums, Ruby Blue (2004) and Overpowered (2007) and eight years later, now, the enigmatically entitled Hairless Toys.

The album opens with four of the smoothest and coolest tunes you 're likely to hear this year. The word “sultry” is well employed in describing the album opener Gone Fishing. Murphy uses the inspiration gained from the 1990 documentary film Paris Is Burning which chronicled the lives of the flamboyant drag queen scene in New York of the late 1980s and the creation of extravagant fancy dress balls to celebrate life in the face of the ravages of AIDS and to provide a safe space for those who feel they don’t belong anywhere. Murphy connects with the idea of the outcast standing up to the oppression and hatred that makes them an outcast by being outrageously creative.

Exploitation is the song selected as the album’s lead single, albeit in a version less than half the length contained on the album. Focussing on the theme of selling out, manipulation of the public image and perception of an artist all tangled with a romantic relationship, Murphy offers a very personal perspective on how both sides in either a creative or personal partnership exploit the other. It is a whopping nine minutes and twenty-four seconds long and yet doesn’t seem so because of the layering of sounds Murphy has added with that smooth, infectious groove to keep the ear attentive. Another example is Evil Eyes where a couple of simple keyboard chords every now and then bring back the crisp fun of early '80's English synth-pop before morphing into a beat that moves more than just the feet.

Hairless Toys is a long form album; all tracks (bar one) are over the 5 minute mark. The one that isn’t is Exile a song that on first listen sounds misplaced in this collection. It’s a pensive tune that seems to belong in a Wim Wenders road movie set in the slow moving, barely changing world of the American Mid-West. Yet, when you listen to it again in the context of the album it’s a master stroke – a palate cleanser between the alternating chilled and sultry opening tracks and the final three tunes that strip back arrangements to a minimalist take, then individually developing into a richly textured denouement of layered instrumentation, beats and evocative vocals. House of Glass and the title track Hairless Toys (Gotta Hurt) both showcase the ethereal vocal quality that Murphy at times brings to her work and the closing number Unputdownable has a hook that channels a great soul diva, like Aretha Franklin, but, then only just for a moment before diving back down to the quiet, spacious sounds of a cool underground lake before propelling you back up to the air and sunlight again where that anthemic hook resides.

Róisín Murphy hasn’t reinvented the wheel here, nor is she reliving her glory days as an alternative dance floor diva by rehashing her more radio friendly hits like You Know Me Better from Overpowered. There is a lot of creative energy on display in the nine tracks on Hairless Toys, sometimes it doesn’t totally satisfy, and then again, it’s an album that says “Listen to me again… and again…” each hearing revealing new things to please the ear. It's not just the ear, either; not to be too vulgar but this album offers several soundtracks or that sultry tête-à-tête which gets more than just your feet tapping and your hips swaying.

- Blair Martin.

Roisin MurphyHairless Toys

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