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Noctorum announces their fourth album 'The Afterlife', ahead of which they presented their new single 'Piccadilly Circus in the Rain' and first single 'A Girl With No Love'.
Noctorum is guitarist/singer-songwriter Marty Willson-Piper and producer Dare Mason. This is the duo's first long-play in seven years. Slated for release on February 15, this album will be made available on heavy-weight gatefold vinyl, CD and digitally via Schoolkids Records. Fortunate PledgeMusic contributors got their advance copy after Noctorum's campaign successfully achieved 113% of its target for the album.
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.
"Perhaps city-living is by definition a difficult slog - high rents, a constant pressure to earn, an uphill battle that traps you in a vicious circle that has you so focussed on the job of survival that your aspirations, your dreams, are swept aside, pushed out of reach as all your waking hours are spent treading water, your imagination drowning, your ideas lost in the rush hour," says Marty Willson-Piper.
"Piccadilly Circus In The Rain addresses the struggle and questions the romantic notion of London as a cultural melting pot - music, galleries, nightlife, history, energy, red double decker buses, unarmed friendly Bobbies, the cover of Abbey Road and the Queen. Singling out this city is purely coincidental but in truth, for most people with artistic tendencies "London brings you to your knees".
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 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 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.
'A Girl With No Love' and 'Piccadilly Circus' in The Rain' are now available across online stores and streaming platforms like Spotify. The full album 'The Afterlife' album can now be pre-ordered in all formats via Schoolkids Records at https://schoolkidsrecords.com/UPC/634457880016/Noctorum_The-Afterlife-LP
Tour tickets https://www.songkick.com/artists/120004-marty-willsonpiper
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