Born in County Wicklow, Ireland, in 1973, Róisín Murphy relocated to Manchester with her family at the age of 12; three years later, her parents moved back but she remained in the UK. From 1994 to 2003, she was one half of trip-hop duo Moloko with her then partner, Mark Brydon, releasing their debut album Do You Like My Tight Sweater? in 1995. In 2005, she released her debut solo album Ruby Blue, followed by Overpowered in 2007 and Hairless Toys, which earned a Mercury prize nomination, in 2015. Murphy’s new album Take Her Up to Monto is out now and she headlines at the Globe theatre on August 15 as part of a series of concerts curated by Lauren Laverne.
1 | Film
Force Majeure
This is one of my favourite films from the past couple of years. It’s about the inner workings and politics of the family and it lays bare our wish to be superhuman and perfect within it, and the fact that we never will be – we’ve always got very human faults in the end. I love things that have that kind of excruciating value to them and it does feel very like you’re witnessing something private that you shouldn’t be seeing. It has an absolutely brilliant scene involving an avalanche. It’s superb on every level: script, execution, acting, directing. A masterpiece, I would say. But you should probably watch it on your own, not with your partner.
2 | Theatre
Farinelli and the King
This was amazing: Mark Rylance stars in it, and his wife [Claire van Kampen] wrote it. The whole thing was set up in a very small theatre with a lot of real candles, like plays were in the time that it’s set. It’s a true story about a depressed Spanish king and this castrato singer who comes into his life. It’s a very succinct, tight little story. But just to be next to Mark Rylance, that close to him when he’s performing is the most electrifying experience I think I’ve had in about two years. It is orgasmic watching that close. His acting is sublime. I was completely floored by it.
3 | Gallery
The Hermitage, St Petersburg
This is my favourite gallery in the world: you always find something new and you could spend a month in there. It’s like being in Cinderella: it’s grand, with golden ceilings and chandeliers, like a fantasy. My favourite painting that I’ve ever stood in front of is in the gallery: The Union of Earth and Water by Rubens. It’s a very sexy painting: there’s a man and a woman in it and they represent earth and water in a mystical way, but it’s a very sensual portrait as well. I was there about six months ago and stood in front of that painting for a very long time and, again, got quite turned on by it.
4 | Book
CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed by Frédéric Chaubin
I was given this beautiful coffee table book of Soviet architecture for my birthday. It has a lot of holiday camps, swimming pools, theatres and buildings that were built for leisure activities. Incredible architecture in the most obscure places. It’s a little bit sad, because a lot of it has been left to fall apart. People don’t believe in that awful totalitarian system that they came out of, so they’ve turned away from the architecture. I’m a bit upset with that whole concept: it’s often got nothing to do with the buildings themselves, but people place all these human emotional ideals, for good and bad, on certain kinds of architecture.
5 | Music
Fat White Family live, Coronet, London
I went to see them play live earlier this year. It was so good; it felt like they were on and off in a few minutes. It took my breath away that a band could come along and actually be something interesting. A band with blokes in it seems to be a dead form, really, and then it can throw up something new that shows you what that energy can be and it’s irreplaceable, in a way. It was exhilarating, loud, sexy, subversive. But they’re a very sort of dangerous lot, and maybe that’s a prerequisite, and maybe oftentimes bands aren’t dangerous enough these days.
6 | Place
Rotterdam
Recently, I was in Rotterdam and for someone who likes architecture, it’s like waking up in a dream. Obviously it’s all postwar, because it was completely flattened, and it’s one of the biggest ports in the world, so it’s got all this mad, great big epic architecture of every style since the postwar period, all butting up against each other. It’s just amazing to walk around and take pictures. It also has some fantastic museums, great cafe culture, dance music that has been going since the 80s. It’s a wonderful city and a very civilised place.
7 | TV
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict
This week, I watched this really interesting documentary on BBC iPlayer. Peggy Guggenheim is a real hero to have done what she did in a man’s world, as the art world still is. I really liked the insights into her personality; she wasn’t this flamboyant character, but actually quite shy and reserved. There are some audio interviews she did just before she died and they use them throughout. Some people say she had a lot of help with her taste, but I think perhaps people talk about her in those ways because she’s a woman. But she didn’t have it easy; people were really snooty about her and she just ploughed on. I think what comes out of the documentary is that she really did put the art first.
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