Singer David Turpin’s back and he’s ‘late’

After a four-year hiatus, Dublin songwriter, David Turpin, returns this week with a new album, We Belong Dead. He now trades as The Late David Turpin, a wry nod to the fact that, in late 2011, he briefly lost his heartbeat following a swimming accident.

“It’s sort of ambiguous whether I was in deep, deep shock or clinically dead, but I went 28 seconds in between pulses,” says Turpin. Turpin’s new album is lush, unforced electro-pop and features guest performances by Cathy Davey, Conor O’Brien (Villagers), and electro act, Hunter-Gatherer.

Turpin’s vocals have a remote, narcotic, and conversational quality. “The way I sing is the way that comes naturally to me and it’s not a pose,” says Turpin. “But I am very attracted to distance and to a removal from things. And I’m interested in hypnosis and the idea that, as a singer, the words just travel through you. It’s just the shape and the feel of the words in your mouth, and that is music enough. There’s nothing more beautiful, and more mysterious, than the human voice. I’ve listened to a lot of Laurie Anderson records and I’ve seen her perform a number of times. There’s a coolness in her delivery and a detachment, and, yet, the fact is it’s a human voice. And that carries so much meaning and such emotion.”