Get To Know: Myshkin's Ruby Warblers

For over two decades, Myshkin has been weaving stories through music that is at once cinematic, intimate, and slyly mischievous. Her latest album, Hot Night in Paris, brings together songs she’s honed across years of touring and performance, finally capturing them in a horn-soaked, rhythmically rich collection that spans swing, tango, and second-line parade. Known for her taut narrative writing and silk-and-steel alto, Myshkin reflects on the intersections of place, memory, and artistic risk, offering a window into both the music and the life that shapes it.

Welcome to Curious For Music! Can you tell us about the inspiration behind your latest release?  

Themes running through the songs include power, beauty, sacrifice, desire, courage, and  redemption  

What was the creative process like for this project?  

Hot Night in Paris is a group of songs written over the course of many years, audience faves that just never made it onto any of the albums. They finally got recorded during the sessions for Trust and the High Wire, with a crew of local legends and genius collaborators while living in Joshua Tree, California. It wasn’t until we moved to Scotland that the right moon crossed the right meadow, it slipped out a dusty hard drive and into a  hollow in fertile ground. I finished the last bit of tracking and mixing and let it loose.  

How does this new release differ from your previous work?  

I’ve used horns on a lot of records, but this one is soaked in horn parts, trombones from  Scott ‘Drago’ Kisinger and sax from Kelly Corbin. Many of the songs swing petty hard, so the combination makes the whole record sound more like New Orleans than any record I  made while living in that wonderful city, or since.  

Were there any particular challenges you faced while making this music?  

This was recorded in the years immediately after Jenny’s illness, when she miraculously survived sepsis and the loss her legs and four fingers. This was the biggest challenge either of us has ever faced. She began learning cello during her recovery, right about the time we were recording. We finally got her cello onto the title song last year, the last tracking done on the record.  

Did you collaborate with any other artists or producers on this project?  

The Ruby Warblers has a fluid membership, I’ve been very lucky to collaborate with  amazing players wherever I’ve lived. This record is soaked in peak performances from  (Leonard Cohen violinist) Bob Furgo, drummer Danny Frankel (Lou Reed, k.d. lang),  bassist Damian Lester, long time collaborator Sailor Banks, the brass section mentioned  above and others. The title track was born in an afternoon jam one hot desert day at the  home of the inimitable Victoria Williams, who contributed some of the first lines to the  song, and an ethereal Guzheng take in the studio. 

What message or emotion do you hope listeners take away from this release? 

Courage.

Is there a story or concept that ties the songs together?  

Hot Night in Paris is a last long look back. A rueful sizing up of that machine that runs the  world to rubble. I think we all feel the shift, things not what they were a minute ago, and  increasingly dark. The songs I’m writing now are maps and walking sticks and stepping  stones, raw and new and reactive, but these nine songs linger ghosty in the doorway, a  sweet farewell to the muses that brought us here. Calming the new shakes with old  stories, coaxing one last dance from the dusk, the trombone saturated swing juxtaposes  with a lot of the subject matter but reinforces the message: you can't be worried all the  time.  

How has your sound or style evolved on this release compared to your earlier work?  

I’ve been writing and recording songs for a very long time, learning as I go from  experimenting with raw folk, raucous rock, early swing, electronic anti-pop and back  around again, it’s definitely not a straight line! I continue to be inspired by music from all  over the beautiful world and hope I never stop evolving as a writer and bandleader.  

Is there a track in your music discography that feels especially meaningful to you? And what makes it stand out?  

The band is named after my theme song! ‘Ruby Warbler’. It felt more like a gift than a piece of work, as some songs do, but also like a sort of  crystallisation of my voice as a writer and singer: nomad-torch-jazz flavoured, rueful and  hopeful in near equal measure, passionate.  

How do you plan to share this release with your audience? Are there any upcoming  performances, videos, or special projects in the works?  

We are touring Scotland England and Wales in April, and playing in Scotland through the summer. I made a —100% human made!— hand-drawn animated video for the first single, The Light, which you can see at myshkinsrubywarblers.com.