Violins are Golden

E.M. Forster’s famous dictum to “only connect” has found an enthusiastic advocate in Ruby Colley. Mururations, the debut album from the classically-trained violinist, is a brave attempt at taking disparate threads – be they musical styles (modern classical, maths-rock), ethnic influences (Middle Eastern, Irish, Eastern European), or instrumentation (violins, live drums, Loop Stations) – and knitting them together to make an intriguing and beguiling whole.

While on paper it risks sounding like an academic exercise, once you acquaint yourself with the edgy atmospheres and rich textures, you’ll be left in no doubt that this is actually a deeply organic record. One that isn’t so much the product of the lecture hall, as a well-stocked iPod.
“Culturally and musically there really aren’t too many boundaries out there anymore,” explains Ruby, over a coffee and iced muffin. “I listen to so many different kinds of things – from John Martyn, to Fleetwood Mac, to Steve Reich – it’s inevitable that the music I write reflects that. It isn’t self-conscious, I’m not making too big a deal out of it – it’s something that just seems very natural to me.”
The push-pull between its classical and more left-field elements sparks off an interesting tension that runs throughout the course of Mururations. And it’s a dialogue that Ruby seems in no hurry to resolve. An attitude that may be explained by the nature of her musical education – which saw her initially taught using the (at the time) experimental Suzuki Method, before moving onto the Royal Academy in London, and a more rigorously classicist tutelage.
“I started on Suzuki when I was about three,” she says. “ It’s core belief is that music should be taught in the early stages in much the same way as a language. So there’s a great emphasis on aural training, getting a feel for it on that very basic level, and then progressing onto the theory and technique.”
Sounds like a fairly common sense approach.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But when it was originally proposed it was hugely controversial. Critics claimed that it wouldn’t produce musicians, only glorified tape-recorders – a generation of people who all played in exactly the same way.”
And is that the case?
“Well, speaking from my own experiences, I’ve found it’s maybe helped me improvise a lot better than if I’d had a straight classical training. But I have to admit I am a bit of a tape-recorder too.”
Classical training doesn’t lead naturally onto a career in composition, but after leaving university, Ruby was always determined to get her hands dirty.
“I just didn’t want to be a member of an orchestra forever,” she says. “I’ve always written music and I always assumed I’d continue on with that.”
On moving to Belfast, she hooked up with Jim Rainey, Paul Connaghan and Dave Glenfield to form folk-rock act Cava. And while that is still very much a going concern (with a new album due out in the summer), last year’s My Elegant Insect EP provided the first evidence that Ruby was developing a fascinating solo voice in tandem. Since then, she has diligently set about carving a unique space for herself in the local music scene – supporting acts as diverse as Sinead O’Connor and Final Fantasy, and performing on bills with the usual indie suspects.
Taking the stage with little more than a floor-full of effects pedals, the fact she resembles few other performers has so far proven no disadvantage.
“It’s a difficult one,” she admits. “You can look highbrow in the pop world and low-brow in the jazz or classical world. I feel like I have my work cut out, to be honest. But I’ve been surprised who has responded to it. At heart, I hope what I write is emotive, and emotion speaks to everyone really. I’m just doing my own thing, really.”