This Weekend I’ll Mostly Be Listening to: Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls

Been talking a lot about post-punk recently and here’s a group that sort of fell off the map in that area. Difficult to quite know why because their first album is a classic.

Pauline Murray, originally of punk band Penetration, had split with them in 1979. The following year she teamed up with Martin Hannett (in some respects the Zelig of punk and post-punk – he’s everywhere) who provided the Invisible Girls, functionally John Cooper Clarke’s backing band, which included a rotating list of various post-punk luminaries including amongst others Pete Shelley, Vini Reilly, Bill Nelson, Nico, Steve Hopkins and even Wayne Hussey. Always loved their work on Clarke’s albums – it’s got a sort of shimmering urgency. And they bring a similar approach to Pauline Murray’s songs. But it’s Murray who pulls those songs together and imprints them with her personality and creative vision.

The album, entitled Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls is great. Allmusic isn’t far wrong in the following assessment:

Here, with Hannett‘s far-away, odd sound leading the way, she makes a more subconscious, skillful pop album, full of dark touches, such as discordant piano, flanged basslines, Maher‘s insistent beat, and strange little background guitar parts. The material is all excellent, especially the knockout opener “Screaming in the Darkness” and the Magazine-like single “Mr. X.” This was one of the most inspired and unique solo LPs the punk generation produced. [Les Disques du Crépuscule’s remastered and expanded

The songs point in various directions. There’s something almost twee pop on tracks like the commanding Dream Sequence or Time Slipping. Something more abrasive on European Eyes and Judgement Day (the first thirty seconds hint at something intriguing, but there’s a satisfying clatter to the percussion). Oddly, the production ain’t great. It’s a little murky. And yet, who cares, it’s still works. An underrated classic by a singer and song writer who has continued to work, releasing an album as recently as 2021 and written an autobiography last year – Life’s a Gamble: Penetration, the Invisible Girls and Other Stories.

Dream Sequence1

Screaming in the Darkness

Time Slipping

European Eyes

Mr. X

Thundertunes

Judgement Day