The London five-piece Tom Dougall, Dominic O’Dair, Maxim Barron, Charlie Salvidge and Max Oscarnold release their first album on Tough Love and their fourth for the world. It’s recorded in home studios, mixed at Studio B in South London and completely self-produced. This extra material recorded and commisioned around the same time the original album was made. The deluxe version of Toy’s fourth album, “Happy In the Hollow”, is now available online. It includes the original album alongside new artwork and four rare or previously unavailable songs, as below.
Happy in the Hollow
The Willo (Sonic Boom remix)
Strangulation Day (Cosey Fanni Tutti remix)
Move Through the Dark (Daniel Melero & Yuliano Acri remix)
Toy, who released Happy In The Hollow, their fourth, and by far most acclaimed album to date, in January of this year, have announced details of “Songs Of Consumption”, an 8-song collection of unique interpretations of tracks which have inspired the band.
Taking on a varied musical range from The Stooges via Amanda Lear to Soft Cell, the album, released on Friday 15th November 2019, will be available on LP, CD and digital formats. A hand-numbered edition of 300, 180gm seafoam green vinyl is available exclusively via Bandcamp and the Tough Love website.
Self-produced and recorded at home studios, the track listing of the album is as follows:
1. Down On The Street
2. Follow Me
3. Sixty Forty
4. Cousin Jane
5. Fun City
6. Lemon Incest
7. Always On My Mind
8. A Dolls House
Talking about the album, TOY said: “Songs of Consumption sonically is a continuation and development of the themes conceived on Happy In The Hollow and it will show people where we are going towards musically. The DIY approach was explored further utilising more of the electronic elements that we touched upon before. Drum machines, stripped down arrangements and rudimentary production give a primitive sound that we thought suited the choice of songs. Some of the songs have very big sounding production, so we wanted to experiment with them by going in a different direction.
Music is consumed voraciously now whereas these songs came from a time when the song was of the most important thing and that’s what was appreciated. Stripping them back to the essence of what they are was also something we wanted to explore. Also, we wanted to make a covers record with songs by people that influenced us in the past few years and it’s as much about the way they dealt with their ideas, and how they put themselves in uncomfortable situations in order to make something that in the end is simple. It’s a homage to the spirit of these people, that helped us to untangle ourselves from our inherent complicated nature and create a new space where we can exist.”
Additionally, having played a sold-out tour of the UK in February, including a mesmerising show at Village Underground in London, the band have announced a couple of very special shows at the end of the year.
Playing under the banner of ‘Hollowed Out – A night of strange sighting and unhabitual ritual’ the shows will see them re-imagining songs from Happy In The Hollow.
Toy return with their fourth studio album, a record that grabs hold of you from the start – by far their most accessible release to date, it combines familiarity with a boldness of execution across a multitude of genres, ambitiously upgrading their sound as they dip into post-punk, krautrock and even acid folk at points.
Recorded between their own home tape studios and mixed at Dan Carey’s studio b in South London, the album was entirely produced and mixed by the band. becoming self-sufficient has paid rich dividends for the band here, giving them artistic freedom to expand their sound in new directions throughout. familiar qualities like metronomic rhythms, warping guitars, undulating synths and Dougall’s gentle, reedy vocals are all in there, but so is a greater emphasis on melody and a combination of being both reassuring and sinister that is as unnerving as it is captivating. “colourful, hazy and seductive…a reinvigorated unit who have finally come into their own”
Today, UK psych rockers TOY announced the release of their fourth album. With the announcement of the new album, the band also released a video for the lead track “Sequence One”. It is a perfect mix of psych and kraut rock. You can also listen to the two previously released tracks via Bandcamp .
The album is offered in a few different variants, so make sure to check out all your options before you buy. I went with the Tough Love variant that is limited to 300 and comes with a bonus LP of remixes. Rough Trade has 200 copies on white vinyl as well as a ‘Dinked’ version limited to 700 that you can grab from various UK distros . There will also be an indie store exclusive on blue vinyl, limited to 1000.
‘Sequence One’ taken from the forthcoming album ‘Happy In The Hollow’ available 25th January 2019.
The Fat Angel Sings 