A really cracking album.
S. Hebbron | Leicester UK | 03/11/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The most interesting and arresting thing about this band is their quirky creativeness. The songs here are an odd and ambient collection (forever the soundtrack to a marevellous Greek holiday for me now!) Each track has it's own distinct style and personality and yet each is catchy, infectiously melodic and lyricaly, just the right side of sane.
Murphy's voice is full of range and surprise, it can be harmonious and completely shock at once.
Really great and different stuff, a delightful break from the mainstream, I defy you to find any bands doing similair stuff!
Highlight tracks are the beaty and heady, "Bring it Back" and the deliciously insightful "Absent Minded Freinds", a wry look at modern relationships."
Making and doing
E. A Solinas | MD USA | 11/25/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"UK dancepop duo Moloko are in fine form in "Things to Make And Do," their third blend of acid jazz and trippy electronica. The talented Roisin Murphy and Mark Brydon create a charmingly erratic dance album that sounds like nothing else, yet never fails to draw you in.
It opens with a peculiar piano solo, before kicking into the sexy sax-keyboard of "Pure Pleasure Seeker," and the ominously trippy "Absent Minded Friends." A darker note enters with songs like "Being Is Bewildering," which is technically a more "normal" song, a slow and rather melancholy song based on acoustic guitar and organ. Same with the lower-key pop song "The Time is Now."
There are also some more experimental songs, such as the nonsensical funk of "Indigo" or the creepy psycho-vocals of "If You Have A Cross To Bear You May As Well Use It As A Crutch." "Remain the Same" is perhaps the most experimental, with the vocal sampling and sound of the organ being overwhelmed and sunk by the electronic bleeps.
In this release, Moloko downplays the outright weirdness in favor of a more subtle sound. Call it experimental ultraquirk acid-jazz-funk-house-trip-hop. That more or less describes it. It's not just a fun album, but a richly engaging one with some deceptively simple-sounding songwriting.
Roisin (no, it doesn't rhyme with "raisin") Murphy has an excellent voice for this type of music -- it sounds clear and flexible, while being strong enough to rise over powerful music that could have overwhelmed her. And she brings depth to certain songs like "Mother," where she lashes out at her mother in a restrained manner: "I know somehow somewhere I'll be bumping into you/you see I'm blameless/I had a mother who was shameless/no wonder my life collapsed!" Elsewhere the songwriting is just deliciously bizarre.
Mark Brydon takes charge of the musical backdrop for Roisin's voice. And a fine job he does too, blending organic instrumentation like piano, acoustic guitar and rippling strings with some vocal sampling and deliciously wacked-out beats, sounding like anything from a DJ on acid to the funkier twin of Portishead.
Erratic it may be, but "Things to Make And Do" is also fun, wild and extremely eclectic, switching styles the way most musicians do instruments. It may not be their best album, but it is a wonderfully engaging, trippy one."
Track Listings (15) - Disc #1
