Releases: Prostitute | Deluxe Expanded 2CD Edition
Toyah’s bold, defiant and most experimental work, the 1988 solo album “Prostitute” is released for the first time as an expanded CD edition in deluxe 7” sized gatefold packaging on 6 June from Edsel.
This Deluxe 2CD Edition features a previously unreleased live recording of the album from Chichester. In November/December 1988 Toyah formed a new band Fripp Fripp with musician Robert Fripp and embarked on a 22-date tour. On the 7 UK and 15 European gigs Toyah performed the Prostitute album live, accompanied by Paul Beavis on live drums as the tour’s first act
For Toyah fans and collectors, it’s a fascinating document of Toyah performing an impressive volume of vocals, dialogue and lyrics with precision and defiance. The package includes rare imagery, ephemera and a new sleevenote by Toyah archivist Craig Astley.
The album was written and played entirely by Toyah Willcox and Steve Sidelnyk who went on to record and play live with Madonna (Ray of Light, Music), Seal and Richard Ashcroft, amongst many others. A fiercely independent lyrical work, it is sonically also a radical departure from previous albums comprising drums, vocal and guitar meshed with a scrapbook of samples and found sound.
Toyah explains: “I would get up at four in the morning and capture the dawn chorus, record church bells, snippets of conversations and producer Tony Arnold would marry them into the tracks. We worked as if we were compiling a scrapbook with glue and paper, old newspaper cuttings, lost love letters, odd thoughts and tons of fractured emotions.”
• Pre-Order Prostitute on 2CD and/or Picture Disc here. Read more info/the press release at toyahwillcox.com. See also the reissued album’s page. Watch Toyah announcing the release during last weekend’s Toyah At Home.
