RóISÍN MURPHY, the absolute Queen of Everything, first came to the attention of the more discerning music lovers of the UK in the early 90s, working with Mark Brydon in a strange electronic-soul duo from Sheffield.
They were named after the Russian word for milk – Moloko – cribbed from the wholesome drug-in-a-drink in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange.
For me, Moloko’s music was notable for its top-quality tunes, its genre-bending, hugely likeable and unrelenting oddness, and Róisín Murphy’s engaging, acrobatic and occasionally breath-taking vocals – and her willingness to mangle these often achingly beautiful vocal performances into new and strange shapes.
She’d go from Karen Carpenter to Pinky & Perky to the girl from the Exorcist in the space of a few seconds. Moloko’s songs were bewildering and beguiling in equal measure.
And the lyrics – funny, daft/clever wordplay and tall tales of ego-maniac pharaohs, party weirdos and dirty monkeys, cheeky monkeys, all solemnly delivered by the Queen of Sass like this was the most serious shit in the world – were a cut above the contemporary club dreck of the era.
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