Toyah - Toyah! Toyah! Toyah!

Featuring the diminutive Toyah Wilcox when she was more Siouxsie Sioux and not so much Kate Bush, Toyah! Toyah! Toyah! captures a 1980 concert in Wolverhampton, which was also filmed for a U.K. television documentary on the brittle singer/songwriter/actress/cult figure. She's an acquired taste with that kind of severe personality and delivery (and even more severe hair) that could only come from the U.K. and only in the '80s. If you're not familiar, don't start here. Start with some kind of hits collection that includes the later singles "It's a Mystery" and "I Want to Be Free" and leave this to the fans (including myself) who crave a document of her scrappy early years. With only two albums under her belt at the time of this recording, the new wave diva sounds urgent, hungry, and just as sharp as her haircut while her band rocks with that jagged, amphetamine beat, occasionally slowing down for the dramatic sci-fi numbers like "Insects." A year later she would release the fantastical and heavy album Anthem and began phase two of her career, so this is a kiss goodbye to the days of Derek Jarman and anti-establishment with some songs that wouldn't be on future set lists. Not that there's any other kind of Toyah fan, but this is strictly for the hardcore.

Toyah - Sheep Farming In Barnet

Toyah Willcox is a classic example of a new-age hippy. An all-purpose self-improving dilettante, one minute acting, the next singing and the next reputedly picking up vast sums for services rendered to the advertising world.

Her one or two oddball singles and EP of the same name as this album are all included here on a package initially released abroad to meet the excessive demand (!). Well maybe the Europeans didn't realise that there ain’t no sheep in Barnet or perhaps they retain a fond fetish for that phenomenon affectionally known as acid rock.

For it is into these realms that Toyah and her not inconsiderable cohorts take us, the narrow lipped lady herself coming on like some post punk Grace Slick. Titles like 'Neon Womb' obviously have an ecological element which goes with the excellent sleeve photo of the early warning "golf balls" on the Yorkshire Moors and the likes of Pete Bush and Joel Bogen on keys and guitar are adapt enough to flesh out the ideas with some ambitious instrumental arrangements

Toyah's voice is certainly better on record than it is live, but that doesn't mean there isn't a fair bit of frenzy obliterating the lyrics. Maybe mood is more important than words, hence 'Elusive Stranger' where the sense of mystery is enhanced by sea breeze effects conjuring up memories of 'The Prisoner' TV series.

While the first side is sub-titled 'Heaven', the reverse is 'Hell', although the music isn't necessarily anymore, er, fiery. 'Danced' is pretty enough to make daytime radio, whilst 'Last Goodbye' befits one with aspiration towards the (melo)dramatic world.

Elsewhere things get sorta spacey, but if there's a message of concept I'm afraid it eluded me. Still, there are plenty of ideas here and even if few of them appear to be fully realised, Toyah's career still has extensive voyeur potential. ***

Mike Nicholls NME, 1980

Toyah - The Blue Meaning

The Blue Meaning is the second album by Toyah, released in 1980 by Safari Records. Although not the first full-length release, this is often considered to be the band’s first “proper” album. The album saw a band line-up change and was supported by a tour which was documented in the 1980 profile documentary ‘Toyah’ for the ATV network. The album contains one of Toyah’s most infamous songs, ‘’Ieya’’ which was released as a single in shorter edited faded form and later re-recorded in 1982. The Blue Meaning was recorded during April 1980 at Parkgate Studios in Battle, East Sussex and mixed at Marquee Studios, London: The band line-up was Toyah Willcox – Verbals & Unusual Sounds, Joel Bogen – Guitar, Pete Bush – Keyboards, Trumpet, Charlie Francis – Bass Guitar, Steve Bray – Drums. The album was released while the band travelled the UK on the Ieya Tour. Promotion for The Blue Meaning was “multi-media”, an idea that was a fairly new concept in 1980. Aside from the month-long UK tour there were television appearances by Toyah and the band – mostly regional – including Granada Reports in the North West, and Straight Talk in the Midlands. Press ads ran in most of the major music press and Toyah was interviewed by NME, Sounds, Zig Zag, Record Mirror …etc. The Blue Meaning, a pop-punk-gothy mix of mayhem and magic.

Toyah - Posh Pop

After years of copyright wrangling, the belated reissues of Toyah’s early albums has finally allowed her to be reassessed. It’s Anthem which Toyah’s 13th full album most closely resembles. It appears having her early work back out has enabled Toyah to be as at peace with her music as such an untameable spirit will ever be. She’s made excellent questing albums since Anthem, but none have so completely reconciled her fearlessness with a simultaneous love of bloody great big pop songs. Posh Pop’s title eludes to Toyah’s husband Robert Fripp guesting on guitar, under the alias Bobby Willcox. Such knowingness aside, it’s not a bad description for such elegant material.

Toyah - The Changeling

Reviews of Toyah's 1982 album The Changeling describe it as a daring, progressive, and artistically ambitious album that showcased a significant evolution from her earlier, more punk-rooted work, even if some listeners found its intensity unsettling. Praised for its thematic depth, powerful performances, and boundary-pushing sound, it is highlighted by strong tracks like "Brave New World," "Angel & Me," and "The Druids". Recent deluxe reissues have been lauded for their excellent packaging and bonus material, revealing the album's complexity and the artist's creative vision. 

Reviewed by Ian D. Hall

When an album has the feel of a concept perfectly weaved through it, and yet does not have the final essence that gives it that stamp of recognition, that is the sign of total mastery by the artist, and arguably what might be considered the best album of a career because of it.
Toyah, the undisputed Queen of Birmingham’s gig theatre experience, stepped out of the adulation received for the album Anthem, and perhaps found a different way to express her own feelings, her emotions, and turned the poetry and art within her rage to one which is almost Progressive, beyond verse, it is punk but with an extra emotional drama attached to it.
The Changeling is impressive as it is raw, it is the anger and dichotomy of existence of being a performer and being reserved when in reflection, and in a final bow of the studio group as a whole, it is an album of dramatic finesse that sees the woman from Kings Heath tackle demons with sincerity and heartfelt warrior class.
From the opening of Creepy Room and Street Creature, the scene is set on a combination of songs that growl with infamy and prowl and stalk the emotions of the listener like a panther in darkness in search of prey.
Joel Bogen, Andy Clark, Phil Spalding, and Simon Phillips add heat to the ferocity of Toyah’s vocals and as tracks such as the amazing The Druids, Life In The Trees, Angel & Me, and Castaways play with imagery and language, with determination and fire, and it is glorious to the extreme, and melancholic in its powerful enthused animation.
What came before, whilst intelligent, belligerent, fantastic, was merely a prelude, and arguably provided Ms. Willcox the framing of what was to come, and that insight of moving beyond the trailblazing 70s sensational start is why she has been at the forefront of British musical freedom of expression ever since.
The Changeling is a reminder that we must alter our outlook occasionally if we are to progress, and what a way to frame that feeling but with an album of intense pleasure and feeling.

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.