“Come on, I’m ready. I’m really ready! Let’s have it…” runs the sample that opens Roisin Murphy’s sixth solo album Hit Parade. The former Moloko frontwoman, who turned 50 last month, is clearly eager to hit the world stage with some of the most euphorically danceable music she’s ever made.
The clip – one of many scattered throughout the release – turns out to be a snippet of an answerphone message she left for the record’s eccentric German producer, DJ Koze, whose renowned perfectionism regularly gets in the way of him completing tracks. It’s clear now that it was time well spent; he was crafting songs that shape-shift like balearic sunsets over the water: golden soul seeping into flecks of funk-guitar cloud, shimmering streaks of disco, and warm, fluid splashes of guitar with chilly undercurrents of sorrow, confusion, confrontation and defiance.
