On this day… 39 years ago – 22nd May 1981 – the studio album Anthem was released. It still sounds as good today as it did then, and no doubt always will. Timeless! (Thanks to andy)
Great news! The Signed Box Set version of Toyah & The Humans’ Noise In Your Head – An Amazon Exclusive – is available again to order. This will no doubt be very temporary so get yours while you can! **Update – It’s Sold Out again**
The Limited Edition Amazon Exclusive edition of Toyah & The Humans’ Noise In Your Head box set sold out in just a few hours of being available to order yesterday. This included a signed print “from one human to another” by Toyah. The edition of the box set which doesn’t include the print is still available to order online.
NOISE IN YOUR HEAD is a 4 CD + DVD box set released 3 July 2020 that brings together the complete works of Toyah & The Humans.
The box set contains four albums (‘We Are The Humans’, ‘Sugar Rush’, ‘Strange Tales’, ‘Live At Scala London’) and six bonus tracks, including home demos and the previously unreleased track, 21st Century Schizoid Man. It also includes a DVD featuring a previously unreleased 90 minute concert, and four promo videos.
A strictly limited edition exclusive Amazon version includes a postcard print signed “from one human to another” by Toyah Willcox.
PRE-ORDER AMAZON EXCLUSIVE SIGNED EDITION
PRE-ORDER THE BOX SET
The Humans were Toyah, her musical director Chris Wong and multi-instrumentalist, the late Bill Rieflin (drummer for King Crimson and latter-day REM, as well as Ministry, the Revolting Cocks, Lard, KMFDM, Pigface, Swans, Chris Connelly, and Nine Inch Nails).
Toyah put the ensemble together in 2007 for the birthday celebrations of Toomas Hendrik Ilves, president of Estonia, a country already dear to Toyah.
As Toyah explains in her note in the 40-page booklet, “I was very keen to work on an idea where mid-range frequencies didn’t cancel out the natural space of the voice. Always having been in love with the bass I wanted to create a trio of just my voice and two basses, allowing power, prose and top line melody to dominate the audio spectrum. The Humans were to be music stripped bare.”
WE ARE THE HUMANS, released in 2009, features “Noise In Your Head”, “Quicksilver” and “Is It Wrong”. The CD now includes four bonus tracks: a cover of “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” featuring Robert Fripp, and three of Toyah’s original home demos, demonstrating her original concept for the ensemble.
SUGAR RUSH (2011) features “Sea Of Size” and “Small Town Psychopath” and Guest Human throughout, Robert Fripp. The bonus track is a version of “Small Town Psychopath”.
STRANGE TALES (2014) album features “Get In Your Car” and now closes with a previously unreleased 7 minute version of the King Crimson classic, “21st Century Schizoid Man”.
LIVE AT SCALA LONDON is the first full 16-track release of an entire 2010 concert at London Kings Cross’ Scala venue, including the encores of “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” and “Purple Haze”. Guest Human Robert Fripp features throughout.
On the DVD, LIVE AT TRADING BOUNDARIES is a previously unreleased 90-minute, 21-song concert filmed in April 2015. Also included are four promo videos, issued on DVD for the first time.
All discs feature faithful artwork on facsimile wallers and a lavishly-illustrated 40 page booklet featuring annotation written by Toyah herself. Also featured is an essay on the period covered by the box by Toyah’s official archivist and compiler of this box set, Craig Astley.
The box set is dedicated to Bill Rieflin, who sadly passed away on 24th March 2020. Recorded in summer 2019, “21st Century Schizoid Man” was only recently mixed and is one of Bill’s last completed recordings.
Sarcastically and affectionately, Bill referred to this anthology as The Humans’ Greatest Hits. Bill exchanged with Toyah this March, as included in her online tribute to him, that “We made good things together. Some of my best work ever.”
These look gorgeous! Following the fantastic solo Toyah vinyls earlier this year, come four Toyah & The Humans vinyls. All four vinyls are also released on July 3rd 2020. Click below for order links.
The three studio albums by Toyah & The Humans – We Are The Humans, Sugar Rush, Strange Tales – make their vinyl debut on 180g heavyweight coloured translucent vinyl. Strange Tales now closes with the previously unreleased 7-minute 21st Century Schizoid Man, the last track Toyah and Bill Rieflin recorded together.
The full 2010 concert album Live At Scala is released for the first time in its entirety, featuring a cover of Purple Haze alongside songs that later appeared on Sugar Rush but were not yet recorded at the time of the gig.
Fast approaching the 40th – yes 40th – Anniversary of the release of The Blue Meaning.
Short, but great, interview with Toyah from STV in 1985. This is Scotland Today when it went all soft furnishings and sofas in the mid-80s! Toyah talks Minx, the Soul Passing Through Soul video, America For Beginners, School’s Out and more, with Paul Coia and Haig Gordon.
Updated! Toyah Releases 2020 – Just added information and images for the latest new Toyah release, the forthcoming Desire white vinyl album, released on 24th April. Click below to visit the Toyah Releases 2020 page. See also our Releases news archive.
The new compilation: Rare, Remixed and Revisited, released as part of the Toyah Solo box set, is now available as a digital download and to stream via Spotify.
The album includes previously unreleased songs, a number of demos, remixes and re-recordings (Revisited) and features 16 tracks:
1. Tears For Ellie (Demo), 2. God Ceases To Dream (Remix), 3. Poland (One Day On Earth) (Demo), 4. Now I’m Running (Remix), 5. It’s a Mystery (Whispered Elixir Mix), 6. Lust For Love (Demo), 7. Angel (Demo), 8. Rebel Run (Revisited), 9. Good Morning Universe (Revisited), 10. Be Proud, Be Loud (Be Heard) (Revisited), 11. Desire (Revisited), 12. Obsolete (Revisited), 13. Danced (Revisited), 14. We Are (Revisited), 15. Angel & Me (Revisited), 16. Believe In You (Demo)
As previously posted, Desire, Take The Leap! and Velvet Lined Shell are also now available in standalone digital Deluxe Editions – all featuring bonus songs. These albums are also available to stream via Spotify (click the links above for official links to streaming and more).
Following the release of five of Toyah’s solo albums on amazing colour/clear vinyl on Friday, is the news that the classic 1987 album Desire is to be released/reissued on 180 gram white vinyl next month (24th April 2020).
The album is released by Demon Records.
Featuring the original artwork, along with an inner sleeve (as with the Record Store Day Red Vinyl release of Desire in 2018) which will include the album’s lyrics and Toyah photographs. Click below for more info or to pre-order.
“Desire” was Toyah’s first album for the EG label, and features her hit single cover version of “Echo Beach” as well as a cover of Donna Summer’s “Love’s Unkind”.
Produced by Mike Hedges, the album features Robert Fripp (who co-wrote the title track) and Ronnie Wood. The LP is pressed on 180 gram white vinyl and the inner sleeve features the lyrics.
Velvet Lined Shell is released tomorrow for the first time on vinyl, and as if that isn’t enough of a treat already, the album isn’t on regular black vinyl, it’s on 10″ purple vinyl!
Click here and here to read how Dreamscape covered the original release – back in April and May 2003 – of the first new studio album from Toyah in almost a decade. Those were exciting times.
At the time of the album’s release Toyah was participating in the second series of ITV’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! in Australia and there was no social media so info and promotion of Velvet Lined Shell was very much word of mouth and via fan sites like this one, along with details from toyahwillcox.com. Back to basics, punky and a whole lot of fun!
Great memories and still a great album – Little Tears Of Love sounds as incredible today as it did when first released in 2002.
Just a couple of days until Minx, Prostitute, Ophelia’s Shadow, Take The Leap! and Velvet Lined Shell are released on colour/clear vinyl, and HMV have a great “Toyah LP Bundle” deal available at their website. Add all five of the albums to your basket and pay £79.99. A saving of over £20 compared to other online stores! Click below for HMV.
Last but certainly not least, the Velvet Lined Shell 10″ purple vinyl. Making its debut on the format, see Toyah reveal the album, originally released back in 2003, at Instagram. Click on the photos to pre-order Velvet Lined Shell purple vinyl. (Photos © Toyah Willcox)
This Friday sees the release of five Toyah solo studio albums on amazing colour/clear vinyl, including two – Take The Leap! (1994), in clear vinyl; Velvet Lined Shell (2003), in purple vinyl – which have never been available on any sort of vinyl previously.
The former is a double album and the latter Toyah’s first ever 10″ release.
Also coming on Friday are Minx (1985), in translucent red vinyl; Prostitute (1988), in translucent yellow vinyl, and Ophelia’s Shadow (1991), in translucent aqua vinyl.
In the lead up to their release, Toyah has been showcasing the gorgeous new vinyls via photos and video clips at Instagram, with just Velvet Lined Shell still to be previewed this week…
• Click on each or any of the photos below for further info or to pre-order the new colour/clear Toyah albums. (Photos © Toyah Willcox)
Three of the albums included on the, recently released, retrospective box set, Toyah Solo – Desire, Take The Leap!, Velvet Lined Shell – are also now available in standalone digital Deluxe Editions – all featuring bonus songs.
Desire includes the previously unavailable Mesmerised, as well as Plenty, Sun Up and Re-Entry Into Dance. Take The Leap! bonus songs are the demos of Requite Me and Invisible Love, an alternate mix of Waiting and the incredible It’s A Mystery (Weybridge Mix). While Velvet Lined Shell has Experience as an extra song.
Desire | Deluxe Edition, Edsel/Demon Music: February 2020
Tracklist: Echo Beach, Moonlight Dancing, Revive The World, The View, Moon Migration, Love’s Unkind, Dear Diary, Deadly As A Woman, Goodbye Baby, When A Woman Cries, Desire, Echo Beach (Surf Mix), Plenty, Sun Up, Re-Entry Into Dance, Mesmerised.
Take The Leap! | Deluxe Edition, Edsel/Demon Music: February 2020
Tracklist: Now I’m Running, Lust For Love, Invisible Love, Name Of Love, Winter in Wonderland, God Ceases To Dream, Ieya (Revisited), Waiting (Revisited), Neon Womb (Revisited), Elusive Stranger (Revisited), Our Movie (Revisited), Thunder In The Mountains (Revisited), I Wanna Be Free (Revisited), It’s A Mystery (Revisited), Requite Me (Demo), Invisible Love (Demo), Waiting (Alternate Mix), It’s A Mystery (Weybridge Mix)
Velvet Lined Shell | Deluxe Edition, Edsel/Demon Music: February 2020
Tracklist: Every Scar Has A Silver Lining, Velvet Lined Shell, Little Tears Of Love, You’re A Miracle, Mother, Troublesome Thing, Experience
Dreamscape’s Toyah 2020 Releases page has just been updated – With new information and photos related to Toyah’s busy release schedule this year.
So far there’s been the eight-disc + 48-page booklet box set, Toyah Solo (just released and just incredible!) and the five colour/clear vinyl albums; Minx (red translucent vinyl), Prostitute (yellow translucent vinyl), Ophelia’s Shadow (aqua translucent vinyl), Take The Leap! (double album clear vinyl), Velvet Lined Shell (10″ purple vinyl).
With a number of other releases to follow through the year this page will be added to and updated. Check out the page and revisit for new releases.
It’s Toyah Solo Day!! Toyah’s first ever box set is released today!
Toyah unboxing Toyah Solo. It looks great. A much better looking box set than Madonna’s Complete Studio Albums released in 2012 (and that one was really good!)
“I am so excited. This is the first ever Toyah box set… The first of a few to be announced. Enjoy!” TOYAH
Toyah Solo is a new 7 CD + DVD anthology of collected works by Toyah, released 28 February 2020 by Edsel Records
An Amazon Exclusive edition featured a signed print and was strictly limited to 500 copies. (Now Sold Out!)
The first Toyah box set ever features six studio albums (Minx, Desire, Prostitute, Ophelia’s Shadow, Take The Leap!, Velvet Lined Shell).
The set also boasts 44 bonus tracks, including rarities, B-sides, collaborations, and several unreleased tracks, plus a DVD of promo videos and a brand new exclusive interview filmed in December 2019 with Toyah talking about her solo albums.
RELEASE DATE: 28 February 2020 | FORMAT: 7 CD + DVD in wallets in 2-piece box with 48 page booklet.
• Toyah Solo is available to pre-order now from Amazon. See Dreamscape’s Toyah Solo News Archive and our new Toyah 2020 Releases page which will, hopefully, be updated with each release this year. (Screen caps taken from a video clip that is © Toyah Willcox).
Dreamscape’s new Toyah Releases 2020 feature page is now online.
Toyah’s February Blog: “There is so much happening this year and it is all going to be announced in stages. Toyah Solo box set was announced in January and yesterday five Toyah Colour Vinyl were announced for pre-order“. Click below to take a look!
Dreamscape has features on four of the six Toyah solo studio albums included in the forthcoming Toyah Solo box set: Desire, Prostitute, Take The Leap! and Velvet Lined Shell.
Click below to see all four plus lots of other Toyah features.
