Dreamscape | The Toyah Willcox Fansite

In the Court of the Crimson Queen was Toyah’s fifteenth solo studio album

Originally released in 2008, the album title (referencing King Crimson’s debut album) was suggested by producer/co-author Simon Darlow and was endorsed by Crimso head honcho (and Toyah’s husband) Robert Fripp. “At last my husband’s done something for my career!” Toyah commented.

A powerful Bowie-esque Art Rock statement, the album was New York Good Times ‘Album Of The Year’.

This is the 2013 reissue with bonus track, 21st Century Supersister. Preorder now for 1st April shipping date

1. Sensational, 2. Latex Messiah (Viva La Rebel In You), 3. Heal Ourselves, 4. Lesser God, 5. Angel In You, 6. Love Crazy, 7. Bad Man, 8. Hyperventilate, 9. Come, 10. Legacy. Bonus Track: 11. 21st Century Supersister

Toyah: Lead Vocals, Simon Darlow: Instruments, Backing Vocals, Production, Mix. Arranged and written by Toyah/Darlow. (Thanks to Brian Marsh)

The revised cover art for the 2013 reprint of Toyah’s ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’ album. The Official Toyah website will be announcing details on how to order the CD soon.

As the label on the cover of the re-print of ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’, included in the first Breaking Through newsletter a couple of weeks ago, suggested ‘Sensational’ by Toyah is played (not performed) in Hormonal Housewives.

The tour continues tonight at Southport Theatre and tomorrow at the Victoria Theatre, Halifax.

Another report on the recent news about Simon Darlow. This one from Record Of The Day.

The article mentions Toyah, ‘Sensational’, and ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’: You can currently hear Simon’s music on every X Factor show and the Weight Watchers TV advert with Patsy Kensit featuring ‘Sensational’ from his recent album with Toyah Willcox, ‘In the Court of the Crimson Queen’.

• Read other reports on Simon being named Chairman of U.K. Rights Org BASCA at Billboard and Complete Music Update.

• Toyah, photographed at RTÉ in Dublin, last night guesting on Katherine Lynch’s Wagon’s Den. I think this airs this Thursday at 10.30pm on RTÉ 2, and will no doubt eventually appear on You Tube. There’s a little more info on Wagon’s Den in our previous post here. (Photo © Contact Music – View the full version at their website)

• Quadrophenia Live: It was announced yesterday that The Who will play the full Quadrophenia album on their forthcoming UK and Ireland arena tour. This was reported all over the internet and many of the articles included a namecheck for Toyah: Metro, NME, Contact Music.

• Toyah on TV: While on the subject of Quadrophenia, just a reminder that the film airs again tonight. Full details here.

• I Am Still Ashley Elsdon: Still Buying Vinyl: There are a handful of tracks that are on a list, the kind of list you know somehow you’ll never get to the end of. For me it’s a list of tracks I had once and now I’ve no idea where they are, so I have to get them again. This EP from Toyah is one. It has a track on it called Urban Tribesman, which I really loved, but it just doesn’t seem to be available on download or on a CD anywhere.

• In The Court Of The Crimson Queen: Every Home Should Have One! Just a little something I threw together while playing “the album of 2008” the other day. Please click to zoom. (All photos used © Dean Stockings/Toyah)

It’s become a tradition over the years for Dreamscape to put together an “ad” for Toyah’s latest release… So, here’s one for ‘Sensational’. Available at iTunes, Amazon etc… Click here to view a larger version and below to watch the video at You Tube.

Rather than celebrating the fact that almost 40 years into her career Toyah is still making music, releasing videos and imagery, entertaining her fans (is there anybody else from the New Wave era that is still so busy and visible that a news website about them can be updated almost every day?) and much more, there seems to be even more negativity swirling around than usual, especially regarding the video for ‘Sensational’. Check out the video on You Tube for Toyah’s feelings on the matter!

Some people seemed quite excited yesterday that Pop Justice ran an article on Toyah and ‘Sensational’.

Toyah was a fairly big popstar in the early 1980s. It’s probably overstating things slightly to say that she was the Lady Gaga of her day because she didn’t really have the tunes, but you can’t argue with magazine covers like the one you see to your right. We reckon Toyah could probably have pulled off a fairly successful comeback on the back of this Weight Watchers ad appearance. You know the sort of thing – you find one or two up-and-coming acts who might be prepared to drop her name as an influence, Radio 2 play the single quite a bit, broadsheets do the usual ‘she was there at the dawn of the pop age now the original Gaga is back and she’s as colourful as ever’ pieces…

• Continue reading at Pop Justice.

The full length video for Sensational was released this morning. Uplifting song, great visuals!

Exciting news! A newly edited, previously unseen, video for ‘Sensational’, from ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’, is coming your way soon! Tune into Toyah’s official online channels first thing Monday morning. Here are some screen caps from the excellent 2007 video.

Check out Dreamscape’s 2009 feature on Toyah’s most recent studio album, In The Court Of The Crimson Queen. Charting the build up to the album’s release, official updates, reviews, fan opinions, photo sessions and much more. It’s sensational! ;)

There’s also Dreamscape’s ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’ News Archive. Three years of news, info and updates all related to the album…

‘Sensational’ is currently playing on numerous UK television and radio channels…

A new edition of Toyah’s 2008 studio album ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’ is coming in early 2013. It will include the 2011 single ’21st Century Supersister’.

Toyah casting her eye over two recent artworks: ‘The Changeling’ by Melissa Mailer-Yates and ‘Crimson Queen’ by Cliff Matthews. Both of these excellent creations are available to buy as prints. View more details of Cliff’s here and Melissa’s here. Read our recent Q&A with Melissa Mailer-Yates here. (Photos © Ian Dunn & Cliff Matthews)

• On This Day: It feels like only yesterday but four years ago today the artwork for Toyah’s most recent studio album ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’ was revealed by toyahwillcox.com. Toyah has recently said that she will be working again with Simon Darlow on a new solo album.

• Lytham Proms: Pat Sharp To Kickstart Lytham Proms!!! Toyah plays this festival which takes place between 3rd – 5th August 2012.

• Brian Aris took some incredible photos of Toyah in the early to mid 1980s. One of those shots is available to buy as a signed print.

• A recent screenshot of Toyah is included at the Track 2 website, in their “head & shoulders” section.

• Apparently there have been rumours that this year’s ‘Rock & Bike Festival’ isn’t going ahead! The official festival website says: The show is going ahead, don’t listen to those rumours!! Gates open Midday on Thursday. Toyah comperes on Saturday and guests on a couple of songs with The Sweet too!

Gulp!! Very exciting news today, via a tweet from Toyah: “Dear Crimson Queen fans, many exciting things happening with Simon Darlow. Watch this space 4 C.Q. 2“. A lot of Toyah fans have been waiting for this. In the meantime, please visit Dreamscape’s ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’ 2009 feature and comprehensive news feed.

This great ‘Crimson Queen’ Toyah art by Cliff Matthews is definitely worth another look. It really captures Toyah’s “Crimson Queen” aura and would look amazing on a wall!

It’s available to buy: £285 (70x50cm, acrylics on box canvas), and Toyah herself has saw the painting and given it her seal of approval and trademark “Big Love” autograph.

View the painting here and Toyah with Cliff, here.

It would be good if the same could happen with Mark Satchwill’s amazing works of Toyah art.

Toyah’s official website will be offering visitors exclusive live tracks each month as Toyah’s Changeling Tour and summer festival/concert dates approach. At the beginning of each month an exclusive live track recorded from Toyah’s extensive 2011 tour dates will feature on the Gigs page.

The live tracks will be available to listen to for a limited time only with a new track replacing it each month. These live tracks are a taster for a special live album release planned for digital release in autumn/winter of 2012.

• Listen to the first, ‘Latex Messiah’, live at Manchester Academy, here.

‘The-Rocker/Zeitgeist’, “an idiosyncratic collection of music news and reviews”, recently gave the thumbs-up to both ‘We Are The Humans’ and ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Queen’;

The Humans – We Are The Humans
The Humans are an odd little cove. A project that was first put together to perform new songs at a series of concerts in Estonia, they comprise Chris Wong, Bill Rieflin and one Toyah Willcox.

After the shows were completed, they went into the studio to record the material, before heading back to Estonia to perform them again. Which is a curious, yet perversely intriguing way of doing things.

Most of the music comprises dense, electronic landscapes, with the clipped, robotic voice of Toyah acting as an additional instrument. It’s certainly interesting, and bears more than a passing resemblance to solo David Sylvain. Which is a good thing. ‘Twisted Soul’ is probably the closest thing to anything conventional, and acts as a good entry point. Me? I liked it.

Toyah – In The Court Of The Crimson Queen
Listening to The Humans album reminded me that I had quite forgotten how good the last Toyah album was, the wittily titled “In The Court Of The Crimson Queen”.

Toyah is one of those people who only really became interesting to me after the hits dried up, and this album is a bit of a secret joy. There’s half a dozen songs here that deserved to be huge with the likes of ‘Sensational’, the bluesy (!) ‘Latex Messiah’ and ‘Legacy’, utter delights. However, it would be a brave man who listened to ‘Come’ and ‘Bad Man’ more than once.

You really ought to buy this, just so Toyah doesn’t have to slum it on the Vampires Rock tour again.

Happy Halloween to all Dreamscape’s visitors. The great news this October 31st is that Toyah’s Latex Messiah (Viva La Rebel In You)  is currently number 30 on the iTunes Plus Top 100 Downloads Chart, and, better still, number six in the iTunes Plus Rock chart. It is also no. 92 in the general iTunes Rock chart. Keep downloading!!