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Sometimes an album is immediate, its themes and motives obvious the first time you hit play. Others are more elusive. Irish dance don Róisín Murphy’s last record, 2020’s ‘Róisín Machine’, fell into the former camp. A pandemic-defying collection of joyful disco belters crafted with Sheffield’s DJ Parrot, it landed amid an unlikely revival of the ‘70s genre and shimmied to Number 14 in the UK album chart, becoming her high-charting solo album yet. Its follow-up ‘Hit Parade’, however, is an altogether more slippery affair.
However, the album arrives under a cloud of controversy, with Murphy criticised online in recent weeks for comments about the trans community and her opposition to puberty blockers. The stance felt particularly bruising for the queer core of her fanbase, and at odds with her previous unwavering support of the community. “I should’ve known that I was stepping out of line,” she said in response. “For those of you who are leaving me, or have already left, I understand, I really do, but please know I have loved every one of you.” It has since been reported that her label Ninja Tune are set to continue with the album’s release while not actively promoting it.
Like its predecessor, ‘Hit Parade’ emerged from a long-running team-up with an acclaimed underground producer – in this case, German techno wizard DJ Koze. Murphy recorded a couple of tracks for his excellently eccentric 2018 album ‘Knock Knock’ and, perhaps unsurprisingly, considering her own oddball musical tendencies, found a kindred spirit. We’re talking, after all, about the woman who left chart-botherers Moloko to make her 2005 solo debut ‘Ruby Blue’, a supremely weird concoction of crank-jazz and flatulent beats that reportedly featured ‘brass mice’ (us neither).
Album six isn’t quite that weird – indeed, its tongue-in-cheek title is derived from Koze’s jokey promise that he would take Murphy to the top of the ‘Hit Parade’ – but does operate via its own interior logic, as is perhaps fitting of a record that was pieced together remotely over a number of years. On the one hand, this is accessible alt-pop that drifts from gorgeous, featherweight soul (early single ‘CooCool’) to intoxicating dancefloor euphoria (‘Free Will’) and crackly electro balladry (‘The Universe’).
On the other, it’s punctuated by in-joke skits such as ‘Crazy Ants Surprise’, which sees Murphy play a disco-damaged party monster: “We wanted a certain DJ and the DJ wasn’t there and we were, like, ‘Oh, this is not what we were, like, signed up for…?’” This complex puzzle of a record is also studded with subtle allusions to mortality, a motif Murphy has said was influenced by her late father, who sadly died from Parkinson’s Disease after it was completed.
That emotionally charged theme comes to the fore with standout track ‘Fader’, a truly transcendent big beat weepie on which Murphy recounts the defiant mantra: “Off to meet my maker / When I’m good and ready”. It’s a line that perhaps holds the key to ‘Hit Parade’, a playful record imbued with a sense of mystery and occasional glimpses of autobiography, slowly revealing itself as the cracked mirror image of ‘Róisín Machine’’s bruised optimism.
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“I received plenty of comments saying it was far too soon to ‘go solo’,” Geese frontman Cameron Winter told NME last year while reflecting on how people initially reacted to his decision to branch out on his own. “Most likely because a lot of folks assume that ‘solo albums’ only happen once a band has passed its peak and that they usually feel like uninspired cash grabs.”
Honestly, everyone is trying to earn a living however they can these days, yet no one expected a Geese side project to generate any real financial payoff in 2024. “Just so you know,” he went on, “my solo album is different: because barely anyone knows my band, I am young and comfortable living with my parents and I have the freedom to follow any ideas that interest me.”
Brooklyn indie followers and former NME cover stars Geese were gaining real momentum when their second album ‘3D Country’ mixed cowboy psychedelia with a jazzy, art-punk energy that had already captured the attention of many UK 6 Music dads back in 2023, but who could have predicted what came next? Geese have become one of the most talked-about bands of 2025 and are expected to dominate multiple end-of-year lists with the ambitious and full-range rock of ‘Getting Killed’. Yet the moment that set the stage for this rise was Winter’s Lou Reed-inspired debut solo record ‘Heavy Metal’.
A handful of late-night US television appearances and a spot on Jools Holland acted as a welcoming doorway for the world to see what this 23-year-old can do far beyond what many twice or three times his age are capable of. Now the sold-out Roundhouse audience made up of indie teens, art school regulars, fans who traveled across Europe and seasoned listeners reacts with a collective breath as a slight opening in the stage curtain reveals the silhouette of Winter seated at a piano. First comes a spark of excitement, then a sudden hush.
There is no flashy social media moment, no chatter overriding the music and almost no sea of raised phones. There is a sincerity to how the night unfolds. The Geese singer barely turns toward the audience. “Turn around!” someone calls out from the balcony at one stage. “Is this not enough for you all?” Winter teases back. For some, maybe it was more than enough. At least four people appear to faint around the warm and crowded Roundhouse while the room stands in absolute focus as Winter moves through the dreamlike storytelling of ‘Try As I May’, the emotional swirl of ‘The Rolling Stones’, the bright lift of ‘Love Takes Miles’ and the sermon-like stomp of ‘Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed)’. When he reaches the intense and spiritually charged ‘$0’, even the most skeptical hipster might be convinced that “I’m not kidding, God is actually real”. In that moment, it feels as though we all understand.
The entire performance can be summed up in how ‘Drinking Age’ unfolds. It starts softly with a gentle touch on the keys before erupting into a thunderous attack on the Steinway that could echo into next year, followed by a long, open cry aimed toward the sky. Winter somehow manages to blend something minimal with something enormous, something grounded with something cosmic, a delicate approach that hits with staggering force as he reaches toward ideas of existence, heaven, hell and everything surrounding them.
Winter could recite the phone book and still leave a crowd stunned. He carries the spirit of a post-punk Rufus Wainwright you can play alongside The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, a Gen Z Tom Waits for listeners exhausted by TikTok overload, a new Nick Cave who arrives at exactly the moment he is needed. His voice feels older than his years yet perfectly suited to express the concerns and emotions of his own generation.
We will continue praising Geese endlessly because they deserve it. They are an extraordinary burst of musical creativity that goes far beyond what their lineup would ever imply, and along with Fontaines D.C., they are poised to become one of the decade’s essential bands. Still, tonight offers something quieter and more intimate. Cameron Winter stands completely on his own power, talent and magnetism, proving himself a rising force who can hold an entire room with only his voice, a piano and an entire future waiting for him.
‘Try as I May’
‘Emperor XIII in Shades’
‘The Rolling Stones’
‘Love Takes Miles’
‘Drinking Age’
‘Serious World’
‘Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed)’
‘If You Turn Back Now’
‘Vines’
‘Nina + Field of Cops’
‘$0’
‘Take It With You’
‘Cancer of the Skull’
