Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy

In the 00s, Colleen was a prolific producer. Backed by her Bitches Brew imprint, she released tracks under several guises: Wild Rumpus alongside former Captain Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas; the Latin-flavoured Bambú and the psychedelic disco of DarkStarr with Ashley Beedle. As Cosmodelica she remixed everyone from Horace Andy, Candi Staton and The Rapture to The Phenomenal Handclap Band, Cantoma and Planningtorock. Following her stellar work on Fat Freddy’s Drop’s ‘Mother Mother’ in 2014, this took a backseat to Classic Album Sundays and producing a series of radio documentaries for 6 Music. At the turn of this decade, however, the need to produce – primarily in the form of remixing – returned. When Colleen heard her namesake Róisín Murphy’s ‘Murphy’s Law’ she knew she could transform an already captivating track into something new. Since then, there’s been incredible reworks of Balearic Aussies Midlife, A Certain Ratio, Manchester’s Secret Night Gang and 2022’s stylish overhaul of Lady Blackbird’s cover of Sam Cooke’s ‘Lost and Looking’ in which Murphy tapped deep into her musical psyche and brought disco’s vibrancy, house music’s relentless hypnotism and the transcendental joy and strength of soul into one infectious whole. No wonder renowned music lover Sir Elton John named it his favourite new track on his Apple Music radio show declaring it to possess a “groove that blows my mind”. Recent makeovers include David Holmes for Heavenly Recordings, The Shapeshifters for Defected, FSQ for Soul Clap, Jacob Gurevitsch for Music For Dreams, and Hard Feelings (Joe Goddard and Amy Douglas) for Domino.