Torched U.S. Premiere – Marty Willson-Piper’s Noctorum ‘A Girl With No Love’

Noctorum have announced they will be releasing their fourth album ‘The Afterlife’ through Schoolkids Records. This is the duo’s first long-play in seven years. It will be released exclusively on CD and gatefold vinyl to PledgeMusic contributors in November 2018. The general release of this album will happen in February 2019.

Noctorum is guitarist/singer-songwriter Marty Willson-Piper and producer Dare Mason. Named for the village Noctorum, located near to their childhood homes on the Wirral (near Liverpool), Dare and Marty liked its association with night and its Latin derivation. This collaboration has an eclectic focus, making the quiet loud and vice-versa, singing words that might be spoken and playing indoor instruments that should be heard outside. It has to be imagined to exist.

Today Torched Magazine is excited to share the U.S. premiere of Noctorum’s first single ‘A Girl With No Love’. Comical in its despair, the song explores the emotions of and options against physical loneliness in a world where, surrounded with many choices, people can find themselves not only alone with their thoughts, but with the incessant pressing pain of nature’s physical needs. In removing complicated social etiquette, compromise, personality, the perceived trouble involved and the cost, this one-time expense might adequately satisfy that nature in a world where communication skills, empathy and love are lost in a lonely room full of blind sentient beings unable to connect or trust, who are either doomed or blessed to an eternity of fantasy.

Having formed in 2002, Noctorum released their debut album ‘Sparks Lane’ on Heyday Records in 2003. In 2006, they followed up with the album ‘Offer The Light’ on that same label, later re-releasing it as a digipak in 2010 via Second Motion Records. Heyday released their third album ‘Honey Mink Forever’ in 2011.

Marty Willson-Piper has been writing and performing internationally for over 35 years. He is best known as a long-time member of Australian psychedelic rock band The Church, who he was with from its inception through to 2013. He joined All About Eve in the ’90s, releasing two studio albums and several live albums with them. He is also lead singer and lyricist with Swedish band MOAT and a touring member of Swedish Prog legends Anekdoten. Since the mid-1980s, Willson-Piper has maintained a steady solo output, releasing six solo studio albums and three live solo albums to date. He has also co-written music with many artists, including Grace Slick, Aimee Mann, Susannah Hoffs and Linda Perry.

As a house engineer at London’s world famous Townhouse Studios, Dare Mason has worked with the likes of Prince, Paul McCartney, Boy George, Tina Turner, Ravi Shankar and Soul II Soul, among others. After becoming a freelance producer/engineer in 1991, he produced albums for The Grid, The Church, Placebo and AC Acoustics, working in London, New York, Sydney and Stockholm. He finally moved to Cornwall, where he set up the VIP Lounge studio in 2001. Nowadays, Dare is mainly known as a mixing engineer, having mixed recordings by Brix Smith (ex The Fall), Cinerama and Tommy Tokyo. Dare is also a composer, songwriter and accomplished guitarist, singer and dabbler in keyboards, usually contributing musically to the artists he produces.

Photo by Olivia Willson-Piper

As of October 24, ‘A Girl With No Love’ will be available across online stores and streaming platforms. The full ‘Afterlife’ album along with many exclusive and limited items can already be ordered via PledgeMusic.

From the Noctorum PledgeMusic site..

Hello Music Lovers!

We are happy to announce Noctorum’s fourth album THE AFTERLIFE to be released in November 2018. The album will be available on CD and gatefold vinyl.

Everyone knows that making and selling a record these days creates some interesting challenges, but as I look around the In Deep Music Archive, I see just how many records were made despite all the difficulties of their eras. With the advances in technology putting a studio in everyone’s computer, music has actually become easier to make and share with the public and interestingly this coincides with fewer sales and less financial backing from record labels as the internet has decimated record sales. This means that the non-commercial artists cannot build an audience with their art so easily. But even as financial backing and record contracts are a thing of the past for most of us I see that these new ways of doing things can end with a positive outcome. It really is a labour of love. Still, there’s nothing quite like making a record in a good studio with talented contributors both creative and practical. So for musicians and songwriters times have changed drastically as we are mostly no longer supported by a record label’s handsome budget – but then we are also free, we have our creativity intact and with our ingenuity and the help of those that like our music we can help make it all happen anyway.

We wrote, recorded and mixed the album at Dare’s VIP Lounge studio in Penzance, Cornwall (also home of the In Deep Music Archive) using local musicians to augment the songs where needed – mainly drummers and other more obscure instrumentalists as we found them.

The album has me singing most of the lead vocals, playing guitar and bass, Dare sings two songs (High Tide / Low Tide and Show) and has been responsible for any programming and mixing and also plays extra guitar, bass and keyboards. Olivia duets with me on the song Head On. She also plays violin, cellolin and any needed string parts as well as singing backing vocals. See track listing below.

We have invested quite heavily in the album with the costs of other musicians and technicians, studio rental, mastering, artwork, travel and accommodation. The manufacturing and promotion will be contributed to by our label Schoolkids but it’s going to take more than their small budget to get the album noticed.

To see the ways in which you can support these projects you can preorder THE AFTERLIFE through our PledgeMusic store. Other ways to contribute are available, ranging from t-shirts to record shopping sprees in your city and even recording time with Dare and I down here in Penzance.

Thanks so much in advance for your support from Marty, Dare, Olivia, all the musicians involved in the project and Schoolkids who we also thank for their support! Spread the word!

CREDITS

Marty Willson-Piper – lead vocal, electric lead and rhythm guitars, acoustic guitar, bass
Dare Mason – rhythm guitar, harmonica, backing vocals
Georgia Dulcie – angelic vocals
Eddie John – drums
Written and produced by Marty Willson-Piper & Dare Mason
Lyrics by Marty Willson-Piper
Recorded and mixed by Dare Mason at the VIP Lounge, Penzance, England
Mastered by Poppy Weinberger for Riverfish Mastering
Design by Olivia Willson-Piper
Executive Producer: Kevin L. Keller

TOUR DATES

07 Oct NEW ORLEANS, LA – Siberia Lounge
11 Oct FORT WORTH, TX – Fort Worth Live
12 Oct SAN ANTONIO, TX – Tobin Center For The Performing Arts
13 Oct AUSTIN, TX – Cactus Cafe
15 Oct MARFA, TX – Hotel Saint George
16 Oct HOUSTON, TX – Warehouse Live
18 Oct DENTON, TX – Patterson-Appleton Center
19 Oct DALLAS, TX – Palo Santo Galactic Headquarters
20 Oct DALLAS, TX – Palo Santo Galactic Headquarters
24 Oct NEW YORK, NY – The Loft
26 Oct HARRISBURG, PA – Stage On Herr
27 Oct BERLIN, NJ – The Vault
28 Oct FREDERICK, MD – Private House Concert for PledgeMusic
10 Nov HELSINKI, FINLAND – Nordic Music Days (as part of Anekdoten)
22 Dec BURG STERNBERG, GERMANY – Geisterfest
02 Jan LANDSBERG, GERMANY – Café Zirnheld (TBC)

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