Happy Humans Day! – Toyah & The Humans Day to be more specific! The Noise In Your Head box set is released today, as are the albums We Are The Humans, Sugar Rush, Strange Tales and Live At Scala London. All on gorgeous colour vinyl. Click below to see Dreamscape’s second “Releases” feature page of 2020, focusing on Toyah & The Humans.
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.”
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.
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.
Toyah Solo also entered The Official Charts Independent Albums Top 50 at number 10.
Toyah Solo entered The Official Charts Album Sales Top 100 at number 34.
Missed this at the time! Earlier this month Toyah Solo charted on The Official UK Album Chart midweek Top 100 at number 51.
This follows In The Court Of The Crimson Queen charting on the Official Album Top 100 countdown last April. See screenshots of those charts here.
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.
A review of Toyah Solo by We Are Cult.
Little Tears of Love: ‘Toyah: Solo’ reviewed
❉ This is a fine time to look back at the solo career of an underrated artist.
“I’m too qualified, to give up lie down and die. This is my unsentimental education.”
Toyah Willcox has been a household name since her eponymous band burst onto the UK pop charts in the early 1980s. Juggling her musical career with high profile work as an actress on stage and screen, and a string of television presenting work was both a blessing for her career longevity and a poisoned chalice when it came to her enduring legacy as an artist in her own right.
The release of Solo – the first ever Toyah boxset – is the first step for Willcox and her faithful master of the archives Craig Astley in a bid to right those wrongs.
Compiling most – but crucially not all – of Toyah’s solo albums released since the Toyah band broke up in 1984, alongside a collection of rare and unreleased material, plus a bonus DVD, the release starts a dedicated reissue campaign which continues with standalone coloured vinyl pressings of almost every studio album in the set in March, bringing most of them back into print for the first time in over a decade.
• Continue reading at We Are Cult.
It’s Toyah Solo Day!! Toyah’s first ever box set is released today!
• Toyah Solo: Review: Released this Friday, Toyah’s new box set is reviewed, and given four stars, in the new issue of Classic Pop magazine, which is on sale now.
• Classic Pop: Toyah Solo Review: The complexities of Toyah leaving her band – called Toyah – to become a solo singer – called Toyah – takes up several spreadsheets and pages of footnotes. In short, Solo rounds up the first six albums Toyah made when she left Toyah in 1985…
• Toyah Solo: Official Trailer – View here…
• Toyah Solo: Unboxing the box set: See Toyah unboxing her new, just about to be released, 8-disc box set here…
• Super Deluxe Edition: Out This Week/on 28 February 2020: Toyah Solo 7CD+DVD box – Toyah Solo mops up the era from 1985 onwards when Toyah Willcox signed as a solo artist to Sony’s Portrait Records and then subsequent EG releases, and comprises of seven CDs and a DVD plus a 48 page book – Continue reading…
The brilliant new trailer for Toyah Solo – a box set of incredible albums, released on 28th February. View the trailer below or at Toyah’s You Tube channel. The new 7 CD + DVD anthology of collected works by Toyah, released by Edsel Records, can be pre-ordered here.
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!
TOYAH ALBUMS SET FOR COLOURED VINYL RELEASE ON 13 MARCH
Demon Records will issue five Toyah albums on brand new coloured vinyl releases on 13 March 2020. Complimenting the 1985-2003 spanning CD box set Toyah: Solo, the releases include Minx, Prostitute, Ophelia’s Shadow and the first ever vinyl releases of Take The Leap! and Velvet Lined Shell.
Minx: First time on vinyl since 1985, Minx is Toyah’s first true solo album and was produced by Christopher Neil. The 10-track album features co-writes with Simon Darlow (Slave To The Rhythm) and the UK singles Don’t Fall In Love (I Said) (#22) and Soul Passing Through Soul (#57) alongside unique covers of Rare Bird’s Sympathy and Alice Cooper’s School’s Out. Pressed on 180g translucent red vinyl.
• Continue reading at toyahwillcox.com. Full links to pre-order the Toyah coloured vinyls here.
This photo previews not only the new Toyah coloured vinyl album covers and the discs, but there are also partial previews of the inner sleeves for all five albums. Four of which are completely new!
Toyah is releasing coloured vinyl versions of five of her solo studio albums: Minx, Prostitute, Ophelia’s Shadow, Take The Leap! and Velvet Lined Shell. They are released on Friday 13th March and can be pre-ordered at Amazon. Velvet Lined Shell is on purple vinyl, and this release is the first time the album has been available on vinyl (10″ release).
First ever release on vinyl, and the first ever Toyah 10″ release, The record is pressed on 180 gram purple vinyl. This 2003 mini-album saw Toyah return to songwriting and music-making days in the 2000s. Co-written with sweet Billy pilgrim’s Tim Elsenburg, the six tracks include the punky “Little Tears Of Love” And “You’re A Miracle” alongside the brooding, sultry title track and introspective folky “Mother”…
Toyah is releasing coloured vinyl versions of five of her solo studio albums: Minx, Prostitute, Ophelia’s Shadow, Take The Leap! and Velvet Lined Shell. They are released on Friday 13th March and can be pre-ordered at Amazon. Take The Leap! is on two-disc clear vinyl, and this release is the first time the album has been available on vinyl.
First ever release on vinyl, and pressed on 180 gram clear vinyl. “Take The Leap!” (1994) saw Toyah revisit some of her classic hits – “It’s A Mystery”, “Thunder In The Mountains” And “I Wanna Be Free” – as well as earlier punk material in a heavy rock style. Six original compositions also feature, written with Nick Beggs (Kajagoogoo), Cris Bonacci (Girls School) and Simon darlow (buggles). includes previously unseen photography and adds five Revisited classics on side four.
