Love is a complicated topic often treated simplistically in pop music. Leave it to Roisin Murphy to make a complicated-sounding album about this complicated topic but without totally abandoning the foundation – sturdy melodies – of good pop music.
The London-based Irish pop star’s fifth solo album is full of stylistic diversions, restless percussion and flights into cabaret theatricality and spoken word.
Murphy has comfortably moved between the weirdo pop music of her Matthew Herbert-produced 2005 solo debut, Ruby Blue, the commercially oriented pop of 2007’s Overpowered and the down-and-dirty house music on a string of singles in recent years. The songs on Take Her Up To Monto were recorded (with producer Eddie Stevens) at the same time as last year’s excellent Hairless Toys but were deemed too “experimental” for that record.
Although Hairless Toys was quite experimental by mainstream pop standards, its intricately produced beats incorporated more obvious references to house and disco. Take Her Up To Monto either dispenses with anything remotely danceable or treats beats as a small part of a larger puzzle.
It’s an album of extremes, following its own wandering logic. The playful Mastermind kicks things off with a comforting, arpeggiated beat, while Thoughts Wasted sounds like two songs mashed together, one urgent, the other calm. Lip Service is a straightforward pop ditty sung over a bossa nova drum machine rhythm.
Eventually, Murphy drifts into fitful dreamscapes of micro-sounds and whispers on Nervous Sleep and Sitting And Counting. As the narrative grows sleepier, it feels as though she wants to see how much she can reduce her theatrical pop image into something small and seemingly impermanent.
Top track: Ten Miles High
