Performing a two-year delayed rescheduled set and on support instead of playing a headline show which was cancelled due to lineup issues, Pauline Murray returned following her 2020 solo album release, ‘Elemental’, with her incarnation of John Cooper Clarke’s backing band The Invisible Girls.
Formed of other members of her punk band Penetration including partner Rob Blamire (bass) and Paul Harvey (guitar) as well as her son and daughter, they performed most of the tracks from the band’s only album released under the name ‘Pauline Murray & The Invisible Girls’. The original band contained producer and keyboardist Martin Hannett and drummer John Maher (Buzzcocks) with album contributions from Wayne Hussey (The Mission, Sisters Of Mercy) and Bernard Sumner (Joy Division, New Order).
The band opened their 40-minute support set on the pastel pop-tones of ‘Sympathy’ and ‘Dream Sequence’ before the gothic organ synth of ‘Shoot You Down’, with Murray then moving onto her new solo material with ‘Secrets’ – echoing her vocals in Penetration – and ‘Shadow In My Mind’ with its whirling keyboard solo.
The band then returned to Invisible Girls material with ‘Time Slipping’, its distinctive warm jangle synth throughout, and the hazard monotone of ‘Thundertunes’.
12/04/22: Pauline Murray & The Invisible Girls @ Cambridge Junction, London.
Photos © Ayisha Khan.
© Ayisha Khan.