Elements of jazz-rock, folk, and 1960s Baroque pop surface within the close-quarters songwriting of alternative artist A Girl Called Eddy. Her yearning, disaffected perspective on working-class existence and personal relationships first reached listeners through the self-titled debut album issued in 2004. Beyond a joint project with FUGU during the following decade, the endeavor stayed largely silent until the long-delayed arrival of the second full-length Been Around in 2020.
Music served as a vital refuge during the New Jersey Shore upbringing of Erin Moran, distinct from the Happy Days performer who shares the name. Her parents immersed her in the recordings of Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey. Following her mother’s death in the late 1990s, she turned to music as a therapeutic outlet and accepted a receptionist position at a New York recording studio. There she soon contributed backing vocals and keyboard work for singer-songwriter Francis Dunnery, which led to a tour across Great Britain. After releasing a self-titled album in 1999 as one-third of the arty trip-hop outfit Leomoon, she began using the alias A Girl Called Eddy for her own recordings.
The 2001 EP Tears All Over Town appeared on Le Grand Magistery. Eventually returning to England, she encountered Richard Hawley of Pulp and Longpigs; the meeting prompted her to record in Sheffield alongside Hawley and producer Colin Elliot. The resulting sessions yielded three 2004 releases on Anti-: the EPs Somebody Hurt You and The Long Goodbye plus the album A Girl Called Eddy. During this period she also attracted the attention of several prominent songwriters and performed live with the Cure, Rufus Wainwright, the Beautiful South, and the Divine Comedy.
Little emerged from the project over the ensuing dozen years, although Moran contributed a track to the 2005 compilation Le Pop en Duo: Les Chansons de la Nouvelle Scène Française with Katerine and placed her cover of the Beatles’ “Julia” on a 2008 giveaway CD from Mojo. She further appeared in the 2013 documentary Jingle Bell Rocks!. Later, based in London, she joined indie-pop musician FUGU (Mehdi Zannad) for the 2018 Elefant Records album issued under the name the Last Detail. Early in 2020 she resurfaced as A Girl Called Eddy with Been Around on the same label. Produced by Daniel Tashian of the Silver Seas, the record included contributions from Paul Williams, the Watson Twins, and Viktor Krauss.
