DEBUT ALBUM FROM NICK TOCZEK & SIGNIA ALPHA
Released seconds after midnight on 1 January 2020, Shooting The Messenger is
the first album of the new decade. It sees writer and spoken-word artist Nick Toczek joining forces with Signia Alpha, a musical project led by multi-instrumentalist and producer Matt Webster and featuring a host of first-rate guest musicians. The seventeen-track result is unique mixture of Nick’s poetry, lyrics and avant garde stories all set to jazz-tinged funk rhythms, post-Beat beats and atmospheric grooves, Within these tracks, tight and syncopated guitar, bass and drums are mixed with floating saxophone, melodic flute and splashes of mandolin.
From Bob Dylan to Ian Dury, Woody Guthrie to Patti Smith, Jack Kerouac to Linton Kwesi Johnston, Lou Reed to John Cooper Clarke, and David Bowie to Eminem and other rappers, setting spoken word to music has an honoured past. The current revival is exemplified by the most recent work of Nick Cave, Kate Tempest and countless Grime artists.
Shooting The Messenger is available in CD format via Nick’s website (www.nicktoczek.com) and on download from the following stores: Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Tik Tok, Google Play/YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Deezer, Tidal, Napster, iHeartRadio, ClaroMusica, Saayn, Anghami, KKBox, MediaNet and Instagram/Facebook.
In November, The Voices In His Head, was the download debut single with Signia Alpha. In December came a second download single, Sea Shanty, a new Brexit/Election-themed track with Thies. Both received significant radio plays, and continue to do so.
In March 2020, Caboodle Books will publish Voices In My Head, a brand new eighty-page collection of Nick’s performance poems. By summer 2020 there’ll be a second album of songs by Nick and Thies and, before the year-end, a second album with Signia Alpha, with a third to follow a year or so later.
Meanwhile, check out and enjoy Shooting The Messenger… replete with stunning artwork by the legendary early 20th Century cubist artist Gianfranco Carlotto.