Following the release of her debut ‘Massacre’, Swedish artist Murex returns today with her second single, ‘Hardness of a Silverspoon’, out today via Young. Where ‘Massacre’ announced an artist of shifting, amorphous intent, the new single moves deeper still – more interior, more elemental, and made in a single, urgent session.
“It felt so desperate, this need to let go of obsession and control and present something new,” she says. “It had to be screamed out.” On ‘Hardness of a Silverspoon’ – again accompanied by a self-directed music video – the scream takes shape as sound rather than language: originally conceived with a fuller set of lyrics, the track stripped itself back in the studio until words felt surplus. “Screaming into the void wouldn’t feel the same with words,” she says. What remains is more visceral for the absence.
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Murex plays trumpet – her childhood instrument – threading its voice through a dark, sinister organ. The combination conjures the icy, chamber-electronic world of Björk’s Vespertine: a space where beauty and menace coexist without resolution. It is, like everything Murex makes, resistant to easy categorisation, and all the more powerful for it.
Murex’s world continues to reveal itself in fragments. Artists making pop music today are expected to calcify as one easily consumable version of themselves, or capitulate wildly to the capricious algorithm. Murex is already an accomplished songwriter, propelling the work of women challenging those constraints their way. Her own story, rooted in Nordic folklore, in self-determination, in the refusal to over-define, deepens with each release. ‘Hardness Of A Silverspoon’ is the next turn in that trail.
Praise for Murex
“There’s a magnetic force to Murex – the amorphous song structure becoming truly hypnotic.” – Clash Magazine
“Sweden’s Murex is a slippery artist, eschewing over-explanation when it comes to meanings behind her debut single ‘Massacre’, remaining constantly obscured in its self-directed video. As she says in press material, “It’s not about disappearing or being anonymous,” more about loosening the grip of appearance, and letting the work exist without being defined by it.” It’s the kind of approach that only works when the music is strong enough to speak for itself – fortunately, this skittering and hypnotic track is strong enough and then some” – The Quietus
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