About
Colleen
Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy is a highly respected and experienced musical selector and curator, founder of the album listening event and content hub Classic Album Sundays and an authority on music, sound and the vinyl renaissance.
She was mentored by David Mancuso at his seminal Loft parties in New York City. Together they co-produced the compilation seriesDavid Mancuso Presents The Loftand worked together on David’s record label The Loft Audiophile Library of Music. In 2000, David told Time Out New York City “She is very devoted and very pure about the music. She’s one of the only people I would trust, both with the music and with the equipment, to fill in for me.” She is one of the musical hosts at The Loft, the co-founder of the Lucky Cloud Loft parties in London and DJs internationally on the world’s best sound systems and dance floors.
Classic Album Sundays tells the stories behind the albums that have shaped our culture and in some cases, our lives. Colleen founded Classic Album Sundays as a stance against the increasing devaluation of music and sound. What began as a passion project is now the world’s most popular album listening event with satellites in four continents and the website and social media channels host content on classic albums and artists such as interviews, videos, playlists and more. BBC Breakfast Television remarked, “Classic Album Sundays treat our best-loved records like great symphonies.”
She has been a radio host, DJ and programme director since the age of fourteen and today hosts Cosmodelica and Classic Album Sundays Worldwide on Worldwide FM and a Classic Album Sundays series on Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen. She is the writer and host of BBC 6 Music’s ongoing album series ‘Sounds of a City’ and BBC Radio 4’s doc series ‘Turntable Tales’.
As a producer Colleen has remixed The Rapture, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Beardyman, Candi Staton, Two Bears, Phenomenal Handclap Band, Cantoma, Horace Andy, Chaka Khan & more under her Cosmodelica moniker and as DarkStarr Diskotek with Ashley Beedle. Along with former Captain Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas, she recorded and produced as Wild Rumpus.
More on Classic Album Sundays
More on Cosmodelica
RA Interview
Women in Music
“Given [Cosmo] Murphy’s history and achievements, she makes a perfect subject for the first edition of Full Circle, RA‘s new series of talks celebrating women in music. In conversation with Martha Pazienti Caidan, we hear about the process of becoming a great radio presenter, Mancuso’s philosophies on sound, the joy of DJing without headphones and much more besides.”
More details & download options on Resident Advisor
DIscography
My Releases
DarkStarr’s Psychedelic Disco-Tech: They Live by the Night
(Music Response - 2010 - Compiled and Mixed by Cosmo and Ashley Beedle)
David Mancuso Presents The Loft Volumes Two
(Nuphonic - NUX154CD 2000 - Produced and Compiled by David Mancuso and Cosmo)
David Mancuso Presents The Loft Volumes One
(Nuphonic - NUX136CD 1999 - Produced and Compiled by David Mancuso and Cosmo)
Wild Rumpus
(Musical Blaze Up Album Bitches Brew - BITCH027 2014 Written by Colleen Cosmo Murphy / Gary Lucas, Produced by Cosmo)
Wild Rumpus
(Cloudhopping / Tikkety-Boo Reprise Bitches Brew - BITCH022 2011 Written by Colleen Cosmo Murphy / Gary Lucas, Produced by Cosmo)
Wild Rumpus
(zan Endless Flight / Bitches Brew - EFCD3 / EFLP3 2009 Written by Colleen Cosmo Murphy / Gary Lucas, Produced by Cosmo)
Wild Rumpus feat. Beardyman
(Rock The Joint Bitches Brew - BITCH014 2008 Written by Colleen Cosmo Murphy and Gary Lucas, Produced by Cosmo)
Wild Rumpus
(Purple Somersault Bitches Brew - BITCH013 2008 Written by Cosmo and Gary Lucas, Produced by Cosmo)
Wild Rumpus
(Musical Blaze-Up Bitches Brew - BITCH012 2007 Written by Cosmo and Gary Lucas, Produced by Cosmo)
Bambú
(The Real Thing Bitches Brew - BITCH003 2002 Produced by Cosmo, Ben Mitchell and Nicolas Matar)
Nigel Hayes
(Back Together Sunshine Recordings - SR008/2 2000 Written by Cosmo and Nigel Hayes; Produced by Nigel Hayes)