Moloko

Moloko

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Moloko

Moloko /mloko/ were an Anglo-Irish electronica/trip-hop duo from Sheffield, England consisting of Róisín Murphy from Arklow, Ireland and Mark Brydon, from Sunderland, England.

Origin of band name

The band's name originates from the Nadsat slang in the novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, in which it means "milk" (from the Russian word for milk, ).[1]

History of band

Murphy had no prior professional experience as a singer, when Moloko was formed. Brydon, on the other hand, already had an extensive curriculum vitae within the dance music community as a member / remixer of Chakk, Hula, Krush and Cloud Nine.[2] They met at a Sheffield party, where Murphy approached Brydon with the chat-up line, "Do you like my tight sweater? See how it fits my body!" The query became their début album's title, recorded while the pair were dating.

The first two albums Do You Like My Tight Sweater? and I Am Not a Doctor gained notice in the underground dance scene. The band broke into the mainstream when "Sing It Back", an album track from I Am Not A Doctor, was remixed by house music producer Boris Dlugosch. The track was a massive hit in Ibiza, and this remixed version broke into the top-five in both the Irish Singles Charts, and the UK singles chart in 1999, and also, helped by a psychedelic video featuring Murphy in a very short metallic flapper dress and cap. "Sing It Back" has featured on over 100 music compilations.

In January and February 1999, Moloko supported Garbage on their Version 2.0 tour. This was not a successful liaison, with the Garbage crowd particularly unwelcoming at the Wembley Arena date.

In 2000 Moloko started touring as a full band along with Paul Slowley (percussion), Dan Darriba (drums), Eddie Stevens (keyboards) and Dave Cooke (guitar).

The band also had chart success with "The Time Is Now", the first single from the third album, Things to Make and Do. This album had relied less on the left field beats of the previous albums, and featured more organic instrumentation as well as musically more multifaceted arrangements by Stevens.

Murphy and Brydon ended their relationship in 2001. After their breakup, they recorded and released their fourth studio album, Statues. Statues continued a segue into more traditional instrumentation, along with electronica elements from their earlier releases. Statues incorporated the theme of the couple's split: all of the songs deal with a troubled and/or ending romance.

In 2004 Moloko released a live DVD, 11,000 Clicks, recorded on stage at the Brixton Academy, England. It contained many of their well known songs including "Indigo", "Sing It Back", and "The Time Is Now".

After concluding the tour supporting Statues, Moloko mutually parted ways, with Murphy launching a solo career. However, in 2006 Murphy and Brydon, along with long-time Moloko guitarist Cooke, played a select number of acoustic radio performances to promote the Moloko best of album Catalogue. While both currently pursue projects outside of Moloko and state that there are no plans for Moloko at the moment, Murphy has been keen to stress that the group are not necessarily defunct and that she has no interest in "burying" the project.

Róisín Murphy completed work on her second solo album Overpowered in 2007, released in October of the same year, while Mark Brydon is working on a number of smaller projects in his own studio.

In 2014, during an interview with Irish radio presenter Rory Hall, when asked if Moloko would ever reunite, Murphy simply replied "Never say never".[3]

Discography

Studio albums
  • Do You Like My Tight Sweater? (1995)
  • I Am Not a Doctor (1998)
  • Things to Make and Do (2000)
  • Statues (2003)
Compilations
  • Catalogue (2006)

Awards and honors

"Best International Live Act" - Belgian TMF Awards 2004

Moloko in other media

Moloko's music has appeared in several video games:

  • "Pure Pleasure Seeker" appeared in GamersFirst's MMO APB Reloaded.
  • "Sing It Back (Can 7 Supermarket Mix)" appeared in the Konami music simulation games Beatmania (European PlayStation version) and Beatmania APPEND GOTTAMIX 2 ~Going Global~.
  • "Sing it Back" has appeared in Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and SCEE's Eye Toy: Play.
  • "Familiar Feeling" is one of the songs in the Konami dance simulation game Dancing Stage Fusion.
  • "Fun for Me" appears in the racing game "Dirt 3" and MMO RPG SunCoast.

The song "The Time is Now" is also featured in the Ford Focus adverts for Sky Sports News in the UK as well as the channel's flagship live Premiership football programme Ford Super Sunday, since 2004. In 2009 it was used for the Australian advertisement for the updated BMW 3-Series range.

The song "The Time is Now" was performed by the Jabbawockeez and it was also imitated for their final performance "The Red Pill" on the show Americas Best Dance Crew.

The song "Fun for Me" was featured in the motion picture Batman & Robin, and is on the soundtrack to that film as well. It was also utilised in the advertisements for Dharma and Greg in syndication on American television featuring Jenna Elfman as Dharma, one of the main characters, dancing to the song.

  • "The Only Ones" from the Statues album was featured on the soundtrack to the film, Johnny English.
  • "Indigo" was featured in the film Mystery Men.
  • "The Time is Now" was featured also in the Sex and the City soundtrack and in the British television drama Cold Feet.

The song "Day For Night" was a part of Chris Morris' BBC Blue Jam radio show and Jam television show.

The album version of "Sing It Back" was featured in the 2010 feature film Repo Men.[4]

The songs "The Time Is Now" and "Sing It Back" were performed by Marta (Gabriela Barros) and Lourenço (David Carreira), the main characters of the Portuguese soap opera Morangos com Açúcar. The two songs are in the compilation album Morangos com Açúcar - Escola de Talentos Vol.3, tracks 2 and 17.

See also

  • List of number-one dance hits (United States)
  • List of artists who reached number one on the US Dance chart

References

  1. James, Martin, How to milk Blondie for all they're worth, 16 June 2000. URL accessed on 20 August 2012.
  2. Last.FM:Cloud Nine:wiki. Retrieved on 20 August 2013.
  3. [1]
  4. Newman, Jason (22 March 2010). Hot Soundtrack Alert: 'Repo Men' - The Moviefone Blog. Moviefone.ca. Retrieved on 17 April 2012.
This page was last modified 20.04.2014 09:57:54

This article uses material from the article Moloko from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and it is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.