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Things to Make and Do  >>

Prior to "Sing It Back" being remixed into an Ibizan pant-swinging classic, Mark Brydon and Roisin Murphy were, of course, best known for being the acceptable face of comedy trip-hop. Therefore, anyone expecting Things To Make And Do to be full of handbag-circling, dancefloor stormers is in for a bit of a shock. You see, Moloko are an experimental pop band and not the disco stalwarts their success implies. Unfortunately, this often involves being as irritating as possible. Take "Indigo" for instance, a song so lyrically unhinged it makes "Lily The Pink" seem profound; or the snappily titled "If You Have A Cross To Bear You Might As Well Use It As A Crutch"--an anarchic showdown between Gilbert & Sullivan and Joy Division that's just plain daft. Murphy's voice still resonates like a loved-up Fenella Fielding--all trembling operetta meets pussy-cat growl, but Brydon's rhythmic quirks and off-kilter sounds are perfunctory, often bordering on the puerile. It's not all bad: "Absent Minded Friends" sounds rich and sentimental, while the languid bossa vibe drifting through "Being Is Believing" is Kate Bush in all but name. Ultimately though, the faults here far outweigh the virtues. --Paul Tierney

Statues  >>

Statues may surprise Moloko fans pulled in by 2000's Things to Make and Do as this is no cheesy attempt to cash in on the Ibizian success of "Sing It Back" and "The Time is Now". With a voice like a latter day Kate Bush, anything sung by vocalist Roisin Murphy is going to come out sounding like the post-Apocalyptic gospel, and producer Mark Brydon's artistically complex arrangements are like hearing a new beautiful language.

The album begins in a dancefloor-friendly vein with the appropriately titled "Familiar Feeling", but "I Want You", the orchestral "Over and Over" and the somber title track are steeped in a newly grown-up melancholy. However, the mischievousness and electro-soul found in the likes of "100%" and "Cannot Contain This" are always there to bring things back to the party again. --Ruby Tuesday

Statues  >>

Statues may surprise Moloko fans pulled in by 2000's Things to Make and Do as this is no cheesy attempt to cash in on the Ibizian success of "Sing It Back" and "The Time is Now". With a voice like a latter day Kate Bush, anything sung by vocalist Roisin Murphy is going to come out sounding like the post-Apocalyptic gospel, and producer Mark Brydon's artistically complex arrangements are like hearing a new beautiful language.

The album begins in a dancefloor-friendly vein with the appropriately titled "Familiar Feeling", but "I Want You", the orchestral "Over and Over" and the somber title track are steeped in a newly grown-up melancholy. However, the mischievousness and electro-soul found in the likes of "100%" and "Cannot Contain This" are always there to bring things back to the party again. --Ruby Tuesday

Do You Like My Tight Sweater  >>

Do You Like My Tight Sweater was released in a year when female vocalist led down-tempo acts were hitting saturation point. There seemed to be literally hundreds of enthusiastic epigones attempting to emulate the work of "trip-hop" artists like Tricky, Massive Attack, Portishead and Smith and Mighty. Most of these acts took the same introspective, zeitgeist-capturing route of these seminal Bristol bands--but not producer Mark Brydon (House Arrest, Cloud 9) and singer Roisin Murphy, aka Moloko (a name taken from the Anthony Burgess novel A Clockwork Orange).

Their debut album, cheekily titled Do You Like My Tight Sweater, arrived on the dance scene without fanfare at around this time and presented a radically different take on the down-tempo sound. Boisterous, surreal and humorous, the LP resists the temptation to conjure up yet more disenchanted inner city isolation, seeking instead to paint a brighter--or at least quirkier--picture of modern living. Murphy's elfish, stream-of-consciousness lyrics are delivered here with an infectious slink appeal and are the perfect match for Brydon's slightly bonkers mix of hip-hop beats and funk mixed with groans, creaks, springs and slams.

Featuring the cult hits "Fun For Me" and "Night For Day", Do You... also showcases a bunch more bewitching records, from the Os Mutantes sounding "Lotus Eaters", the sultry "Dominoid", the drum & bass kick of "Butterfly 747" and the silly funk of "Killa Bunnies". It's a rare and genuinely entertaining album. --Paul Sullivan

I Am Not a Doctor  >>

After the success of their 1996 debut Do You Like My Tight Sweater, this follow-up from Sheffield-based duo Moloko received rather a muted response--a shame, as it consolidated the principles they'd already established the first time round. That is, until the summer-1999 dance-remix release of "Sing it Back", which proved to be a huge hit, both in the Ibiza clubs and at home in the UK (unfortunately, that mix is not to be found on this CD). Existentially quirky and shiftless, it was another reproach to the increasingly homogenous mass of electro-pop out there, snagging on the cardigan of chart conformity. Mark Brydon's angular collage of samples, squelching Moog synthesisers, and lopsided rhythms tangled up perfectly with singer Roisin Murphy's schizoid vocals and spontaneous wordplay, particularly on the Pere Ubu-influenced "The Flipside." However, Murphy's bizarre, robotic onstage antics and vocal mannerisms annoyed some, while others lazily marked Moloko down as a novelty trip-hop band. Consequently, I Am Not A Doctor never received the fair hearing it deserved. The last track reads almost like an appropriate epitaph: "Should've Been, Could've Been". --David Stubbs

Catalogue  >>

Roisin Murphy and Mark Brydon started delivering offbeat electronic-pop hybrids back in the mid 90s. Following their successful (and defiantly quirky) trip hop manifesto Do you like my tight sweater? they moved gradually from the periphery to the pop charts via subsequent albums I Am Not A Doctor, Things To Make And Do and Statues, which spawned the hit singles `Time Is Now' and `Sing It Back' amongst others. These two cuts, alongside one of their early hits, `Fun For Me', are the three songs Moloko fans probably know the best on this retrospective collection, and the three tracks long term fans will probably know best. They're also the songs that start this collection off, as if those responsible for the track-listing wanted the hits out of the way quick so they could give the lesser-know stuff more of an airing. The remaining ten tracks - which include the breezy acousto-house track `Familiar Feelings', the oddly funkadelic `Pure Pleasure Seeker', and the ever-so-sultry `Bankrupt Emotionally' - profile a surprisingly diverse band, one that perhaps retained their sense of experimentation more than is normally supposed. --Paul Sullivan

All Back To The Mine  >>

Most remix albums smack of weak marketing. Less about the music itself, they're often more concerned with fulfilling contractual obligations. Sadly All Back To The Mine is not an exception to the rule and represents an unnecessary pillage through Moloko's patchy back catalogue. Culled from five years' worth of archive, what you actually get are 21 mixes (10 of which have never appeared on any commercial UK format) of varying quality and style. Not all of them are worthless: there's a great, rubberised funk version of early single "Day For Night" replete with the kind of walking bassline and vocodered vocals that sounds amazingly contemporary; Swag's twitchy electro mix of "The Flipside" is cute and the glossy strings and bottom-end rumble of "Knee Deepen" work just fine. However, there's too much here that's simply dated, hollow or plain uninspiring. Of the three versions of "Time is Now", none tops the original's acoustic punch and nobody (unsurprisingly) makes a silk purse from the sow's ear that is "Indigo". Not a disaster but one for die-hard fans only. --Paul Tierney

Dominoid  >>

Sing It Back  >>