Roisin Murphy - Uninvited Guest

"I've been walking the streets, it's another purposeless day."

Album: Hairless Toys [3rd solo album]
Recorded: London, England
Genre: House, Deep House, Art Pop
Album Release: May 8th 2015
Length: 5.14
Producer: Eddie Stevens
Vocalist: Roisin Murphy [age 41]
Label: Play It Again Sam (PIAS Recordings)

Official Audio

Charts, Streams & Sales

Belgium (albums): #12
UK (albums): #19
Spotify: 487,000 +
YouTube Music: 53,000 +
2015 Choice Music Prize Nominee (losing to SOAK)
2015 Mercury Prize Nominee (losing to Benjamin Clementine)

Credits

Backing vocals, bass, drums, guitar, keys, percussion, whistle.

Details

• The song is about walking around a busy city with nothing to do. Everyone else is rushing while you saunter and you feel separate. It feels quite lonely as if she wants to be a part of the goings on as reflected in lyrics like "catch my eye, passerby, before I pass through", and "a familiar stranger will recognise me, will glance my way, see something in me"
  
  
• "You can become quite cynical when you're not busy in your head and you just look coldly at the world. That's how I was looking at the world in those moments. I was looking at the fashions in the shop. The lifestyles for sale. The dreams for sale that don't come true." (Roisin Murphy from Hairless Toys: Track by Track)
  
  
• "The way I started in this business was all tied up in sex and sexuality, because of meeting Mark who became my boyfriend as well as my collaborator. That frisson was there in the work relationship all the time. And since we’ve broken up, I’ve taken a little bit of that with me. I’m not saying I flirt with producers, but for me there is always some kind of male-female chemistry in the way that I work." (speaking to MailOnline in 2009)
  
  
• Murphy worked with the same producer for the entirety of Hairless Toys: Eddie Stevens. This is her preferred way of working, a female singer with a male producer and a bit of sexual tension. On her previous album, the ill-fated major label release 'Overpowered' she had worked with an array of different producers, largely at the behest of the label. The results were mixed. EMI tried to market Murphy as Kylie Minogue and when things didn't go to plan they dropped her. Murphy's album prior to 'Overpowered', 2005's 'Ruby Blue', also resulted in her label dropping her.
  
  Things would be different this time, without the commercial expectation that comes with signing to a major. Murphy was now with the independent Play it Again Sam and she had taken an 8 year gap since 'Overpowered', which gave her plenty of time to think about her music. She enlisted the help of her former Moloko collaborator Eddie Stevens, who can be seen pictured below (furthest to the right) on the back cover of Moloko's 2003 release 'Statues'. She knew him well and they would spend long hours, just him and her together, writing and recording songs. So it's no surprise that the album feels more personal than previous releases. It has an intimacy to it which can be felt in the, at times, almost whispered vocal delivery which brings to mind quiet times late at night. It was very well received critically. Commercially she did okay, the album sold over 20,000 copies in Europe alone.
  
  The album sales weren't really important though. Murphy had found her groove again. She had released an album that didn't see her get dropped from her label. In fact, she made another album with Play It Again Sam the very next year and she would continue making house music into her 50's.
  

  

  Eddie Stevens is the furthest to the right