Top Ten Songs on Róisín Murphy's Ruby Blue
The solo debut of Ireland’s finest export. (That’s right, move over Enya.) Fresh out of Moloko, her musical and personal relationship with ex-partner Mark Brydon, Róisín collaborated extensively with Matthew Herbert to make a series of EPs inspired by jazz sounds and sampled objects. The results were compiled to make Ruby Blue.
The closest thing to a pop song this album has. Sampled horn instruments and other sound effects are sequenced together to make a danceable beat with what sounds like an actual drum machine being used. And an oddly catchy song lyrically, albeit having not the slightest clue what is the meaning of any of these sequenced together phrases she's written.
A rare piano ballad accompanied by little more than that and a horn that almost certainly addresses her break up with Brydon. And is beautiful in its stripped back torchy nature.
An almost Sade like smooth rhythm albeit played by the jarring sampled objects with an echoey synth playing in the background. And horn sections.
An odd sound collage combined with an odd glitchy funk bass (or synth that resembles it) creating a truly odd juxtaposition of sounds that has a rather easy to follow narrative about being scared of being the first to make a move on someone you're interested in.
One of the softer songs on the album, with an almost bossa nova like beat played by samples and instruments including 80s smooth jazz keyboards. This could be a rare autobiographical song about her breakup with Brydon.
A deliberately jazz tuned song with sequenced sound samples played to a finger snap beat with trumpets, horns and bass played along synth sounds. Lyrically addresses a hopeless feeling and trying to combat it sung in a pleasant breathy croon a la Peggy Lee. And a wind section thrown in too for good measure!
A symphony of sampled objects mixed with instruments sequenced together to build gradually then draw back. A track which perhaps addresses an agoraphobic fear of leaving home and their rationalization of it. Or I could be way off, she's hard to follow lyrically!
One of the most oddball songs of all time. I don't even really know what to say about it! It was on Grey's Anatomy! It's her most streamed song!
And just like that we're channeling glam rock with distorted noises playing throughout against a handclap beat. Is it about a fictional character named Ruby Blue, an larger than life personality she's nicknamed that? Nobody knows.
An abrasive glitchy intro of sampled noises before settling into a rhythm of jarring abrasive noise samples. A auditory overload of noises but a catchy vocal melody about a surely imaginary, maybe even drug induced/inspired fantasy world. Trippy is the word!