A digital deluxe version of Toyah & The Humans debut album, We Are The Humans, was also released today. See download/listen links here or click below for direct link to Amazon.
Toyah unwraps the first ever vinyl pressings of We Are The Humans (translucent orange vinyl) and Sugar Rush (translucent olive vinyl). Both of these are released tomorrow. Click below for links to all Toyah & The Humans new releases. (Screenshots from videos that are © Toyah Willcox)
Screen caps from The Humans: Live, Up Close & Personal, recorded at the HMV Institute, Birmingham last October, and recently uploaded to You Tube. The footage is comprised of the gig, an interview with The Humans plus comments and opinions from fans who attended the special concert. Click on the caps to view larger versions. (Thanks to Sanctuary Music)
• Setlist: Sugar Rush, Titanium Girl, Labyrinth, Love In A Different Way, This Reasoning, Fragment Pool, Sea of Size, Quicksilver, Telekenisis, These Boots, Twisted Soul, Pebble, Put A Woman On The Moon, Small Town Psychopath/Playing In The Dark, Demigod.
• Immerse yourself in more of The Humans at thehumansofficial.com, the brilliant Sugar Rush fansite and Toyah @ Twitter (a fortnight of updates from the recording sessions in Seattle).
THE HUMANS: TOYAH WILLCOX vocals, BILL RIEFLIN guitar/bass, CHRIS WONG guitar/bass, IGOR ABULADZE percussion: were LIVE, UP CLOSE & PERSONAL: Recorded at HMV Institute, Birmingham, Monday 10 October 2011. Sound: PAUL NICHOLSON
The albums SUGAR RUSH and WE ARE THE HUMANS available from iTunes & thehumansofficial.com.
• Check out Toyah’s Official Twitter for regular updates and photos from The Humans third album recording sessions, direct from Toyah in Seattle.
‘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.
Yet another glowing review for ‘We Are The Humans’. This one from ‘Tasty Fanzine’;
The Humans – ‘We Are The Humans’
If anyone ever asks me what my favourite King Crimson album is, I can answer without blinking that 1971’s ‘Islands’ is probably the group at the actual peak of their abilities. Robert Fripp is involved in ‘We Are The Humans’ at varying points. Toyah, for those of you born in the 80s, was a bit of a star around the beginning of that decade. If anyone asks me what my favourite Toyah song is, I might scratch and frown while comparing ‘I Want To Be Free’ and ‘Ieya’. ‘We Are The Humans’ is very much Toyah’s own album, and Bill Reeflin from REM plays bass and all sorts of other things. Toyah and Robert Fripp are married, and The Humans are inexplicably big in Estonia, where they can include the Estonian President and Justice Minister (these aren’t the same person) as committed fans (says the press blurb). Getting all of this?
Toyah, I am pleased to inform the Tasty readership has, after 25 years, still got it. In buckets. ‘We Are The Humans’ could’ve been released in 1983 to acclaim from her then legions of adoring fans, although it certainly sounds an altogether harder edged proposition than the girly synth punk Toyah was then known for. The combination of vocal aptitude and tunes that had me imagining a bluesier Scritti Politti make for an as ever challenging performance from the original diminutive ginger topped pop pixie, and I only want to ask, do the Humans perform ‘Good Morning Universe’ as an encore? I’m sure they could. [Review by JG]
• DSD, who reviewed ‘We Are The Humans’ at the end of last year, have also given a grudgingly positive-ish review to ‘These Boots Are Made For Walkin’. Read the review here.
Produced by Bill Rieflin, the 10-song CD, We Are The Humans, was mixed in Seattle by Rieflin and Don Gunn and mastered by Simon Heyworth (Tubular Bells, Brian Eno) in Devon, UK.
Comparisons are always misleading but if The White Stripes met with the vocal adventures of Lou Reed, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel and Captain Beefheart then you might have a compass for where the band are headed musically.
We have five copies of “We are The Humans” up for grabs for our lucky readers. To enter simply tell us who Toyah is married to.
The first five correct entries out of the bag will win a copy of the band’s new album. Good Luck!
Go here to enter the competition. No closing date is indicated.
February is all about The Humans; With the gigs in Leamington Spa, Cambridge and London just over a week away, as well as the Haiti Earthquake Fundraiser. Now is as good a time as any for a recap of some of the positive reviews ‘We Are The Humans’ has garnered over the last nine months.
The album itself is a startling work. Startlingly brave and ambitious – and startlingly different from the general public perception of what a Toyah album is, despite her own creatively diverse body of work since the ‘glory’ days of the early ‘80s. Spacerock
Remember the way Bowie deconstructed pop in Low and Lodger? Toyah pulls off the same trick, only more so. Sunday Mercury
Quicksilver is a genuine score, however, with Labyrinth a close contender. Both capture a genuine sense of other-ness without seeming as arch as the other tracks. Die Shellsuit Die
Toyah’s bitter-sweet, rasping vocals are always appealing. Northern Echo
