Haunted Jukebox

Róisín Murphy found fame and notoriety (in Europe, at least) as one half of ‘90s trip-hop duo Moloko. Solo, she released two albums in the mid-2000’s: a song from the first appeared on an episode of So You Think You Can Dance, while the second provided a visual template Lady Gaga would later sneakily take to the bank. Over the past eight years, she’s put out a number of singles and EPs, including one entirely of Italian-language songs. And, all of this is a long way of saying that none of it quite prepared me for her third album, an art-pop song cycle about identity, persuasion, desire, behavior and love (among other things).

Whereas her last album, Overpowered, was the straightest (for her), most immediate pop she ever recorded (it bombed commercially anyway), Hairless Toys makes little effort to appear radio-friendly. Its eight tracks clock in at an average of six minutes each, with the trancelike “Exploitation” extending to over nine. Opener “Gone Fishing” meditates on the classic drag/vogue documentary Paris Is Burning, while woozy, warped electro-country lament “Exile” should definitely be considered as soundtrack fodder for the Twin Peaks revival. Heady, dense, quiet, contained, enigmatic—it’s no wonder this album has mostly fallen under the radar.

Still, by not confining herself to usual three-minute pop song structures, Murphy gives these tunes some much-needed room to breathe. Sublime passages emerge all over the place, like the extended, lush breakdown where the percussion drops out of “Uninvited Guest”, or the jazzy guitar runs that color and lend shape to “House of Glass”, or the neat, beguiling way the music seems to unpredictably contract and expand throughout the title track. The closest she comes to a straightforward love song is closer “Unputdownable”, which wraps a clever reading metaphor around a gently skittering mass of minimalist piano and beats only to all suddenly drop out twice for lone Spanish guitar chords that startle like a breathtaking mountain range or cityscape suddenly emerging out of the darkness. Although often challenging and occasionally inscrutable, Hairless Toys is packed with unexpected moments like these that are more compelling and original than anything else I heard this year.

Favorite tracks: “Gone Fishing”, “Evil Eyes”, “Uninvited Guest”, “Exile”, “Unputdownable”

“Unputdownable”:

 

“Gone Fishing”: