As testimonials go, this one provided by Vinyl Factory when discussing Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy takes some beating: “The biggest heroes of the underground typically wouldn’t describe themselves as such. Frankie Knuckles, Kelli Hand, Andrew Weatherall… all possessed a humility that made them even more honourable and endearing, and they went about their business with little regard for fame and a distaste for industry bullshit. Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy falls firmly into this category.”
But really, anyone who has followed Murphy’s endlessly fascinating life in music shouldn’t be surprised to see her lauded in such terms. She is – much like the electronic totems she’s compared to above – a lifer: someone that has dedicated every inch of her soul and being to the pursuit of music.
As such, she’s been guided by an array of motivations. Whether she’s DJing at her Love Dancin’ sound system at We Out Here, musically hosting the Loft parties, curating a Classic Album Sundays event at the Royal Albert Hall, presenting her weekly Balearic Breakfast radio show or remixing Róisín Murphy there’s always an abundance of impulses bubbling away. There’s the desire to entertain – to put a smile on people’s faces; a need to curate – to give the audience more than just a song; and an extension of this is education. Not in any dictatorial fashion, it’s more about turning people on to new sounds, new ways of thinking, maybe even new ways of living.
And while all these varying strands of her life (a word she uses advisedly – for Murphy this is not a career: “It’s a quest,” she says. “A vocation”) are complementary, they all feed in and out of each other. However, there’s one factor that underpins everything.: the longing to build a community and to encourage and support like-minded music lovers.
