For 2020’s Róisín Machine, Róisín Murphy enlisted the production skills of long-time collaborator Richard ‘Crooked Man’ Parrot who bought a club-friendly dub-disco sensibility to the project, the pair constructing an album of elongated, lustrous, deep workouts. “Incapable” is an impeccably crafted, radiant deep house production with a pair of airy synth chords beautifully illuminating the melody, “Murphy’s Law” is a bittersweet piano-and-guitar disco-groover, “Shellfish Mademoiselle” is a sugared alt-disco confection with yet another unforgettably pretty Murphy vocal hook, and there are plenty more beautiful melodic moments among the beats, bass and lengthy dance floor arrangements. The pure, distilled euphoria contained in “Simulation”’s middle eight provides an almost-celestial relief after four minutes of deep sensual disco chug, and the yearning balearic dance floor torch song “Something More” (written by NY singer-songwriter powerhouse Amy Douglas) pulls a similar goosebump-inducing trick when the major piano chords finally drop two-thirds of the way through. 

Róisín Machine: charisma by the truckload, hooks for miles, high-end songwriting, musical exuberance in a credible dance floor format, and all performed with a subtle, muted intensity and casual flamboyance: post-disco excellence.