Showing posts with label The Humans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Humans. Show all posts

Monday, 15 September 2025

Toyah & The Humans - Sugar Rush

Not to be confused with other acts of the same name, the Humans whose second album is Sugar Rush are veteran avant-garde rock singer Toyah Willcox and bassists Bill Rieflin and Chris Wong, a trio formed in 2007 to fulfil an invitation Willcox received to tour Estonia. The singer-plus-two-bass-guitars line-up may be unusual, but it is no more unusual than some of Willcox's other projects, and in practice, the music is augmented in the studio with other instruments, notably the guitar of guest (and long-time Willcox associate) Robert Fripp of King Crimson, who appears on every track of Sugar Rush. Still, drums and drum programming are relatively minimal in music that nevertheless has a strong rhythmic impetus. It also has a strong flavour of the synthesized pop of the late '70s and early ‘80s as heard from such groups as Eurythmics and Yaz, though Willcox is less angry a singer than Annie Lennox and less passionate than Alison Moyet. She has an ethereal, disembodied quality, even when the music is at its most aggressive, such as on "This Reasoning." The effect can even be mildly humorous, as on "Sweet Agitation," which has something of a '50s rock & roll/doo wop feel. All of this makes the group name "the Humans" somewhat ironic. But it will appeal to fans of later King Crimson and some of the artier efforts of new wave rock.

Toyah & The Humans - We Are The Humans

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 (not that we’re name dropping obviously)). If anyone ever asks me what my favourite King Crimson album is, I can answer without blinking that I don’t have one. I have however been reliably informed though that 1971’s ‘Islands’ is probably the group at the actual peak of their abilities. Robert Fripp (AKA Bob Willcox) 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 Rieflin from REM (among others) 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? Good! Let’s get to the music then.