From Sean Baker’s revolutionary iPhone-shot feature film to Banksy’s profound simplicity: Parisian polymath Crystal Murray delves into the art that elevates her own work.

Paris-to-London polymath Crystal Murray has quietly become one of the most evocative and eclectic artists around. Striking sonically and visually, the artist is intentional and innovative, continually shape-shifting her sound and everything that surrounds it. 

Following 2024’s excellent full-length record, Sad Lovers And Giants, she returns with some of her best work to date in the form of a five-track EP, “Anatomy of a Cry”. It’s a carefully curated and endlessly engaging collection of cuts that gives the sense of depth beyond the simple construction of a song. Murray is a musician who delves into all art forms in her process, amalgamating a plethora of influences to build a world and explore each shade of her inner colour wheel. 

So what did influence Murray? What is creatively significant to her right now? In a Wonderland exclusive, she’s rounded up ten pieces of art that make her tick.

Listen to “Anatomy of a Cry”…

Check out Crystal’s picks…

Sean Baker – Tangerine

Tangerine hits me differently, first the imagery is something else – the fact that Sean Baker filmed the whole movie with an iPhone made me realise that sometimes stripping down shows a lot more emotion. I really fell in love with Sindee. Sindee isn’t just chaotic for the sake of chaos…she’s living inside that rush we all know: smiling, raging, laughing, falling apart. My song “Tangerine” is about her, and a little about me, ahaha.

Tjaikovskij 

Symphony No. 6. He also wrote Swan Lake. Queer. For my EP, “Anatomy of a Cry” I could have find a more poetic wording for it, but I’m questioning the mechanical links of our emotions. I found the name of the project when I  was watching my first ever concerto in Stockholm, where my friend Boerd plays double bass. In the first minutes of the show, I started crying; it was like it was mechanical. And this was the symphony they were playing

Aretha Franklin – “Night Life”

Yes – a big moment was when I re-heard that song 2 years ago. I remembered how soul and jazz touched a place in my heart so deeply, made me remember how I wanted to show that part of me in the next project. And the song itself is just so for the emotional party girls. 

Arthur Jafa – Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death

The first thing I saw entering the Bourse du Commerce last summer was this video. The piece touched me so much that I couldn’t see the rest of the exposition after that. It touched me in a very familiar way. My dad is African American. Growing up in France with this heritage was very difficult, because it’s felt inexistent. People are quite ignorant and don’t really understand where my blackness comes in – hours of explanation and explaining how my culture is still mine. And how I was raised as a Black American, and how much pain and beauty we have built through centuries. That video touched a place called home. 

Banksy – The Joy of Not Being Sold Anything 

This is when I started thinking about how I wanted this project to come out independently. I was tired of having strings attached to my music, and my name was out in this world, and I couldn’t have full control over how to sell myself. And I started thinking that the way labels promote us is all wrong – trying to force feed humans – it does work at some level, but where does art stand?

The challenge is to not be little the place that art has in our society, in our political movements, but instead to champion it for generations to come. If we can operate with sincerity and reach into one another through innovative mediums, performance art can find its place in the now, in the fleeting, and in the years to come.

Archetypes

Like……Nepo Baby? Moving to London opened a new world that I didn’t know – the world of nepotism. There’s a certain irony in my writing that I really let out in this project. There’s a space where I feel like nepo babies are really outside here in London – they’re not scared to be a cliché of something that has already been done. I find it interesting. I like writing about archetypes.

My Crying Map

My post with all my friends crying. When I was thinking about promoting this project with Clara, this was such an important moment in the rollout, showing that crying is universal, emotional, funny, scary. Showing through the lenses of others was super important to me 

Cyprien Gaillard – The Recovery of Discovery, 2011. 

I love a piece that becomes something else with the interaction of people, isn’t that like what life is? I like partying and the art of it, I like when an outfit is something and becomes something else at the end of the night.

Cocteau Twins 

Shoegaze was something new for me in the last 3 years. Shoegaze guitar became my favourite thing to listen to

Anaïs Nin– Journal de l’amour

This enormous book that I’ve been reading for a year – her journal, her love for Henry Miller, her queerness, her open relationships and her obsession with love…. felt familiar.