MOLOKO Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Moloko's third album was a landmark success for the firecracker partnership of Roisin Murphy and Mark Brydon, and it saw them break through from cult favourites to chart-topping champions. Admittedly, a lot of that success was thanks to Boris Dlugosh doing a savvy remix of 'Sing It Back' from their previous album I Am Not A Doctor, but it was all the encouragement the public needed to latch onto Moloko's charms, and follow-up hit 'The Time Is Now' cemented their reputation. Balancing deep-rooted club nous and cavalier flair with a strong pop backbone, Things To Make And Do is every inch a millennial classic and it's not aged a jot.

Review: As Roisin Murphy gets ready to wow festivals and release her latest hyped solo album, the DJ Koze-produced Hit Parade, Music On Vinyl delivers a reminder of where it all began for the Irish star via a new pressing of Moloko's debut album, Do You Like My Tight Sweater. The set received plenty of plaudits when it first dropped in 1995, and it remains a fabulous album - an impossible-to-pigeonhole eccentricity in which Murphy delivers her own oddball lyrics over magical musical fusions (trip-hop, jazz-funk, P-funk, ambient, lo-fi soul, warped deep house, drum & bass, post-punk rock and twisted experimentalism are all thrown into the pot with vibrant results) conjured up by then musical (and life) partner Mark Brydon. It's brilliantly bonkers and one of the best records to emerge from Sheffield during the 1990s.

Review: Music On Vinyl completes their Moloko reissue series with a new pressing of the Sheffield-based duo's final album, 2002's "Statues". The set was recorded while Roisin Murphy and Mark Brydon's relationship was falling apart, giving the set an added level of poignancy - something heightened by the pointed, bittersweet nature of some of Murphy's lyrics. Musically, it has stood the test of time well, with the skewed, low-down jazz-funk of "Come On", the string-laden pop melancholy of "Familiar Feeling", the heart-aching poignancy of "the title track and the jaunty electrofunk hum of "100%" amongst the many highlights.

Review: 2000's "Things To Make & Do" was Moloko's third album and marked something of a new direction in sound for the British electronic outfit. This time round, the band looked to more live musicianship and each track brimmed with life and vitality as a result. The biggest single off the album was the band's biggest ever, "The Time Is Now" - with Roisin Murphy's vocals front and centre but never repeating the same sounds, styles or moods, the album was a real musical journey of highs and lows, and plenty in between.

Review: While Moloko's debut album, 1995's "Do You Like My Tight Sweater", was undoubtedly superb, it was actually 1998 follow-up "I Am Not A Doctor" that turned Mark Brydon and Roisin Murphy into international stars. The set, which is here reissued on vinyl for the first time since, was a far more forthright, confident and funky affair, building on their left-of-centre trip-hop blueprint by incorporating elements of drum and bass, jazz-funk, IDM and new wave synth-pop, but 21 years on still sounds otherworldly and unique. Highlights are plentiful, from the doom-laden, off-kilter original version of "Sing It Back" (decidedly different to the Boris Dlugosch remix), the rubbery jungle-pop of "The Flipside" and the beat-free bliss of "Caught In A Whisper".

Review: "Do You Like My Tight Sweater?" is the album that announced Moloko to the world, but is also one of their most experimental. The dance duo's debut featured big singles like "Dominoid" and the UK Top 40 charting "Fun For Me", which was also used in the Batman & Robin soundtrack of 1997. The album finds producer Mark Brydon combining elements of trip hop, big beat, disco and electronica with Roisin Murphy's sensuous and widescreen art-pop vocals, despite the fact that at the time she had zero prior professional experience. This timely limited reissue comes on heavyweight turquoise vinyl and reminds us of a golden era of UK electronica.