Heartbreak bruises, but 22-year-old Crystal Murray is magicking her affliction into something beautiful. “The vulnerability that I’ve put into this album is something I hadn’t had before,” she shares. “It marks the first time I’ve truly found my voice. There is a broken heart talking but also a little girl discovering that the world is a cruel one.” The Parisian singer-songwriter delivers an Alt-Pop punch, soulful kick and hard-hitting creative vision (just watch her Charlotte Wales-directed visual for “STARMANIAK”) in a more powerful way than ever on her most unguarded project to date, her debut album: Sad Lovers and Giants.
“[This album represents] the overwhelming feeling of being consumed by someone, as if they’re a giant in your life, towering over everything else. A sense of being small or insignificant next to it,” the pixie-faced dreamgirl tells us of the project’s evocative title. “It started with this feeling of distress, not knowing what to do between all these emotions: sadness, rage, happiness, love, hate. When the emotions don’t fit together anymore, emotions are in duel. I was trying to find the right world to explain that feeling of duality.”
Written over a period of two years, in the midst of her relocating from Paris to London, she entrusted Grammy-nominated record producer, Kyu Steed, to executive produce the intoxicating album. “We really had fun with genres, refusing to confine any song into any box and letting my hybridity come in with all the sonority I want.” And it sounds great for it – she pedals exquisite, raw truths and delicately handled instrumentation that’s as intelligent as it is catchy. Stand out tracks including “PAYBACK”, “STARMANIAK” and “FRENZYMESS” prove Crystal’s cooler-than-cool mismatch of R&B, Soul, Pop, Jazz and more is carving her out to be one of the UK’s most original voices.
