Thanks to her tour with our friends from Zwaremachine (who soon will be featuring in this section again) we knew about the existence of I Ya Toyah and since then, we have followed her career closely. Out of Order is the new 5-track EP of this Chicago-based artist and it’s available in CD and also in digital format.
I Ya Toyah, a real one-woman army, as she has so suitably been described, started this project in 2018. I Ya Toyah can be translated, from the artist native Polish, as “It’s just me,” quite a statement from the artist. In 2018, she released her first album, entitled Code Blue that put her under the radar and was revisited in two remixes albums. Now with this new EP, written during the pandemic, she adds a bit of optimism to the despair that everybody has in a way felt during last months.
We already talked about “Out of Order,” as it was our Video of the week when it was released. It’s the best track of the EP: after an unnerving part, the track literally explodes with a strength and industrial power difficult to beat. The song has an incredible vocal interpretation and the production is amazing. “Concrete” is quite different, with an original electronic production and a less aggressive interpretation. If in the previous song we pointed out the electronic elements,”Pray” is definitely more rock, more industrial rock I would say. Instead “Death’s Kiss” is the dance floor killer. I Ya Toyah becomes in this track a “Goth Diva” who will reign in every dark club. And from the dance floor, we move to the punk roughness of the final “Vast Spaces,” where I Ya Toyah proves that she can master every style.
