Shooting The Messenger
The special website price of £15.99 for this 12 track Heavyweight Purple Vinyl LP includes P&P, a free postcard and a Download Card featuring 5 bonus tracks.
If you would like a signed copy, at no extra cost, please choose the second option.
Also available on CD and download.
Shooting The Messenger
TITLE: Shooting The Messenger
FORMAT: Vinyl, CD and download album
ARTISTS: Nick Toczek & Signia Alpha
LABEL: Mutiny 2000 Records
DOWNLOAD RELEASE DATE: 1 January 2020
CD RELEASE DATE: 14 January 2020
VINYL RELEASE DATE: 10 November 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 a unique mixture of Nick’s poetry, lyrics and avant garde stories all set to jazz-tinged funk rhythms, post-Beat beats and atmospheric grooves. 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 2019, The Voices In His Head, was the download debut single with Signia Alpha. which received significant radio plays, and continues to do so. The second single from the album is a re-mix of When We Men Talk (featuring rapper Dee Bo General), released in March 2020, and the third single, No Messages, is due for release in April 2020.
Check out and enjoy Shooting The Messenger… replete with stunning artwork by the legendary early 20th Century cubist artist Gianfranco Carlotto.
Shooting The Messenger, the debut album by Nick Toczek & Signia Alpha, was released as a limited edition, heavyweight purple vinyl LP on 20 November 2020.
This new release is a reworked and remixed version of the CD and download album, released earlier in the year on Mutiny 2000 Records.
Vocals and lyrics are provided by Yorkshire poet and author Nick Toczek. The music is by Signia Alpha, the musical project of drummer and producer Matt Webster (who also features on guitars, bass, mandolin & keyboards) which is augmented by a fluid line-up including Mark Cranmer (bass), Keith Jafrate (saxophone), Chris Walsh (flute), Jack Atkinson (guitar), Dee Bo General (vocals), Stephen Andrews (Guitar), Jonny Botterell (bass) and Emmanuel Williams (guitar).
The 12 track vinyl album comes with an inner sleeve with full lyrics and artwork and includes a download card (with five bonus tracks) which can be redeemed via:
https://signiaalpha.bandcamp.com/yum
The original CD version contains 17 tracks and comes with an eight page colour lyric booklet
A second album by Nick Toczek & Signia Alpha has already been recorded and is currently being mixed for release on vinyl in March 2021.
‘The laid back, funky, jazz-rock vibe that characterises most of this album complements Toczek’s distinctive and, as ever, reassuringly calm, but equally commanding Yorkshire burr perfectly.’
Vive Le Rock!
‘Toczek has teamed up with producer and multi-instrumentalist Matt Webster and a number of high-calibre guest musicians to once again set his powerful verse in a dynamic context. Wit and cynicism are carefully balanced with a keen eye for the beautiful.’
R’N’R Magazine
‘Signia Alpha provide deep funk-bass… tight jazzy sax and clattering percussion around the thoughts stampeding through Nick Toczek’s brain. Poems you can dance to, stream and download.’
International Times
‘...just what the spoken word and jazz fans have been waiting for.’
Louder Than War
Album review in R'n'R Magazine Vol.2, 80 (Mar-April 2020)
Album review in Vive le Rock! 72 (May 2020)
