The new triple-CD package "A Cornucopia" featuring the full new album "Minerva" and two more full-length albums ("Victory" and "Bounty") only available in this physical package. UK customers: for best shipping prices (shipping within the UK) we recommend purchasing via Bandcamp: https://bigstirrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-cornucopia-minerva
THE SPEED OF SOUND (Manchester, England)
Original underground masters of independent pop-rock THE SPEED OF SOUND formed in Manchester UK and, since their first release in 1989 have continuously produced music laced with optimism and lyrical bite, tapping the DIY ethos of punk and the restless lust for experimentation of psychedelia.
It is remarkable how many reviews refer to The Speed Of Sound as “unique’”and “unmistakable”. This identifiable stamp of personality is a result of decades dwelling deep below the music industry radar which have allowed the evolution of their own distinct sound, improbably likened by different people watching the same gig to The Stranglers and Jefferson Airplane. With dual male and female lead vocalists, it is as though Debbie Harry and Lou Reed were fronting The Who and Television at the same time, combining the power of punk with the floating harmonies of The Byrds. Appropriately the natural beauty and order of the alphabet places The Speed Of Sound between Sonic Youth and Dusty Springfield in most cultured record collections. The band themselves describe their music as “Future-Retro-Modernist” but are not concerned with genre constraints, constantly pushing any and all boundaries whenever encountering them.
Ever evolving and ever forward-looking, the band gravitated together from within the Manchester underground scene and have spent the better part of four decades playing live across the UK and in mainland Europe, with JOHN ARMSTRONG (vocals, guitars, songwriting) being the constant element among a shifting collective lineup that has remained unchanged since 2018. ANNE-MARIE CROWLEY adds the other half of the vocal pairing and second guitar, KEVIN ROACHE plays bass guitar, and JOHN BROADHURST provides the backbeat on drums. This is augmented where appropriate by HENRY ARMSTRONG on keyboards, and newly expanded on their latest release with the addition of BOB DINN on trumpet and flugelhorn.
“Ambitiously realised” is a phrase frequently applied to their 5th and stunning 2021 album MUSEUM OF TOMORROW (their bow on Big Stir Records), as demonstrated by no new album scoring higher in the prestigious Record Collector reviews. A shift in focus since the pandemic has seen The Speed Of Sound concentrating on studio work, and the wealth of new material making up their upcoming releases were all purpose-written for recording rather than for live performance. Aided and abetted in their experimentation since 2015 by their ongoing artistic relationship with Vibratone Sound Studio at their purpose-built Miles Platting location in Manchester, the additional range, depth and complexity of The Speed Of Sound’s new work stands testament to the pursuit of new sonic frontiers.
There is no laurel sitting: the ambitious thirst for sonic exploration continues, and 2024 – which marks THE SPEED OF SOUND's 35th anniversary -- promises to be the band's most thrillingly active year yet. The tale is in the title of the forthcoming mega-album: A CORNUCOPIA. The first salvo, MINERVA, sets the stage as a standalone digital release this May, accompanied by an expanded physical edition on CD and limited-run Vinyl encompassing no fewer than two additional (and temporarily exclusive) full-length albums. As the bonus material sees release throughout the year, both longtime followers and those newly discovering the band will only be able to marvel as THE SPEED OF SOUND accelerates... and they haven't even reached their ultimate velocity yet.
The Speed Of Sound on Facebook
Instagram: @thespeedofsounduk
A Limited Triple LP Vinyl Edition featuring "Minerva" and two additional full-length bonus LP, each pressed on differently colored vinyl. UK customers: for best shipping prices (shipping within the UK) we recommend purchasing via Bandcamp: https://bigstirrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-cornucopia-minerva
Deluxe vinyl edition of the bold new album from the UK's legendary THE SPEED OF SOUND, packaged with an unbelievable assortment of themed bonus items! Track list: A1. Tomorrow's World A2. Opium Eyes A3. Smokescreen A4. Zombie Century A5. Wired And Tired A6. Virtual Reality (Part 2) A7. Shadow Factory B1. Impossible Past B2. Leaf Blower B3. Blood Sweat And Tears B4. Charlotte B5. The Day The Earth Caught Fire B6. Last Orders
Extremely limited edition vinyl version in one of several mystery colors! Includes a grab bag of extras from the Museum Souvenir Store!
The bold new album from the UK's legendary THE SPEED OF SOUND on CD. Track list: 1. Tomorrow's World 2. Opium Eyes 3. Smokescreen 4. Zombie Century 5. Wired And Tired 6. Virtual Reality (Part 2) 7. Shadow Factory 8. Impossible Past 9. Leaf Blower 10. Blood Sweat And Tears 11. Charlotte 12. The Day The Earth Caught Fire 13. Last Orders
A Cornucopia: Minerva
The Speed Of Sound
Triple Disc CD Set Download |
$25.00
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Triple Disc Colored Vinyl Edition Download |
$70.00
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Manchester, England-based Future-Retro-Modernist garage-psych stalwarts THE SPEED OF SOUND return with a new album – their second for Big Stir Records – full of ambition, energy, and eccentric melodic brilliance. Heralded by the hit indie single “West Wind” (with “Trickledown” and “Mind Palace” soon to follow), A CORNUCOPIA: MINERVA hits digital
Manchester, England-based Future-Retro-Modernist garage-psych stalwarts THE SPEED OF SOUND return with a new album – their second for Big Stir Records – full of ambition, energy, and eccentric melodic brilliance. Heralded by the hit indie single “West Wind” (with “Trickledown” and “Mind Palace” soon to follow), A CORNUCOPIA: MINERVA hits digital platforms worldwide on May 24, accompanied by Deluxe Three-Disc CD and Vinyl Editions, each including two full-length bonus albums exclusive to the physical versions. Such is the scope of The Speed Of Sound's 2024 vitality that it will take the full year for it all to manifest, and it starts with MINERVA.
Triumphant, defiant and redemptive (and happily coinciding with THE SPEED OF SOUND’s 35th anniversary), A CORNUCOPIA: MINERVA is named for the goddess who, among other things, had defensive warfare in her portfolio. This is reflected in the album’s themes of resistance to mainstream cultural dominance, championing individual identity and artistic creativity whilst forming a vigorous musical celebration of subcultural existence in the face of the frequently bland predominating mainstream.
Fourteen fresh, new and variegated tracks form Minerva, each one a burst of differently-hued radio friendly sonic Technicolor. These new pieces range from a recklessly fast Bo Diddley rhythm successfully merged with a Wagnerian horn section within lead single “West Wind” to the haunting and spacious ballad critiquing Economic Theory in “Trickledown” to the stripped back mediaeval folk tinged starkness of “The Harvest” and on into the stratospheric vastness of “The Great Acceleration”. The album passes on the way through the acoustic guitar driven groove of “SS-100-X”, the spacious iridescence of “Eight Fourteen Monday”, the lively ascendence of “The Party Sniper”, the glowing radioactivity metaphor of “Half Life” and the bright uplifting dementia and identity-loss focused “Mind Palace”. While the bouncing vibe of “Bodysnatchers” reminds us to stay awake and not slip into the drabness of normalcy, the crunching melodic punch of “Clickbait” zings into the typewriter introduction of “Yet Another Tuesday”, the punkified rhythm and blues of “So Faux” and the closing acoustic riot of “Question Time”.
With their inbuilt eclectic and genre-defying style, The Speed Of Sound confound analysis. The songs expand from the band's base-camp foundation of multiple 1960s and punk/New Wave influences, encompassing wide dynamic and stylistic variation, crossing borders and pushing boundaries at every opportunity while retaining continuity. The music bursts with experimentation yet retains the hooks and melodic sensibility, plus the sharp barbed wit, lyrical depth and all-pervading sense of joy that form the irrepressible, uplifting hallmarks of the band. It begins here: MINERVA is now, and especially for those diving into the jam-packed triple LP and CD editions of A CORNUCOPIA, so is the future. THE SPEED OF SOUND brings it to you as only they can.
Expected release: May 24, 2024
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West Wind 2:390:00/2:39
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SS-100-X 3:130:00/3:13
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0:00/2:59
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0:00/3:09
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Half Life 2:460:00/2:46
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Mind Palace 3:090:00/3:09
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0:00/4:26
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The Harvest 2:270:00/2:27
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Bodysnatchers 2:200:00/2:20
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Trickledown 3:230:00/3:23
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Clickbait 2:390:00/2:39
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Yet Another Tuesday 2:540:00/2:54
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So Faux 2:590:00/2:59
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Question Time 2:530:00/2:53
Veteran Manchester, UK-based Future-Retro-Modernist rockers THE SPEED OF SOUND return to kick off a year of dizzyingly ambitious musical activity with a brand new single. “West Wind” is a gale-force gust of garage-rock grit showing off every bit of the band's signature sound, and a level of energy that's no less than astonishing for a group
Veteran Manchester, UK-based Future-Retro-Modernist rockers THE SPEED OF SOUND return to kick off a year of dizzyingly ambitious musical activity with a brand new single. “West Wind” is a gale-force gust of garage-rock grit showing off every bit of the band's signature sound, and a level of energy that's no less than astonishing for a group entering its 35th year as a performing entity. The new single debuts on all digital outlets worldwide on April 5 and is up for pre-order and pre-save now:
https://orcd.co/speedofsound-ww
“West Wind” -- which is also the lead track on the band's forthcoming album, soon to be announced by Big Stir Records – hits the ground running and doesn't slow down for all its breezy 2-minute, 35-second duration. Recklessly fast and invigorating rock and roll, borrowing a Bo Diddley beat cunningly melded with a Wagnerian horn section, the irrepressible rushing wild power unleashed by “West Wind” crushes anything in its path, so hold on tight and ride out the trip with it. The aforementioned horns (trumpet and flugelhorn by Bob Dinn) augment the primal noise kicked up by the band as their two vocalists, singer-guitarist-songwriter JOHN ARMSTRONG and ANNE-MARIE CROWLEY, trade weather warnings over the driving rhythms of drummer JOHN BROADHURST, bassist KEVIN ROACHE and the keyboards of HENRY ARMSTRONG.
“Lyrically this is a protest song; a metaphor for the dominance of the all-pervading major label ‘music industry’ onslaught, snowplowing independent artists out of the way,” offers Armstrong. That's no surprise: astute and barbed social commentary and advocacy for independent art have always been at the core of the band's lyrical outlook, and if anything the new material to be unleashed this year take those themes to a new and ever-sharper level. “West Wind” in particular plays out like Dylan and Baez by way of The Clash, and it's impossible not to take notice.
It's all done with THE SPEED OF SOUND’s boundless drive and life-affirming buoyant energetic zing. Longtime followers will recognize the approach, but still marvel at the vigor of the performance, and that's part of what the band has tapped into for the cornucopia of material to see release in 2024. “West Wind”, for all its meteorological might, is just the earliest forecast of the maelstrom to come, and as someone once said, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows: it hails from Manchester, and THE SPEED OF SOUND is set to soar on it.
Museum Of Tomorrow
The Speed Of Sound
CD Download |
$12.00
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Black Vinyl Download |
$20.00
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Colored Vinyl (Mystery Color) Download |
$20.00
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Big Stir Records cordially invites you to the September 17 opening and unveiling of the MUSEUM OF TOMORROW, in the form of the so-titled new album from Manchester, England's long-running beat combo THE SPEED OF SOUND. The record's elaborate vinyl, CD and digital editions are up for pre-order now at www.bigstirrecords.com,
Big Stir Records cordially invites you to the September 17 opening and unveiling of the MUSEUM OF TOMORROW, in the form of the so-titled new album from Manchester, England's long-running beat combo THE SPEED OF SOUND. The record's elaborate vinyl, CD and digital editions are up for pre-order now at www.bigstirrecords.com, www.bigstirrecords.bandcamp.com, and streaming everywhere on the street date. The Museum consists of thirteen exhibits (or “songs”, as the ancients called them) lovingly assembled by our heroes, working under the Speed of Sound banner since 1987 and today comprised of John Armstrong (songwriting, guitars, vocals), Ann-Marie Crowley (vocals, guitars), Kevin Roache (bass, on board since 1990), John Broadhurst (drums) and the most recent addition Henry Armstrong (John's son) on keyboards. It showcases a musical collective whose drive and capacity for invention have only grown across the decades, and are thus ideally suited to guide us into the future.
The Museum Of Tomorrow opens in September and will never close. Unfurling their Future-Retro-Modernist flag, the genre-category-defying Manchester band plant it firmly atop their ambitiously realized (and fifth) full length album. Released precisely 32 years after their first EP was launched way back in 1989, this is their first full-length project to be shown in collaboration with Big Stir Records and it follows a string of eight songs released as singles with the Californian label... none of which appear here. Museum Of Tomorrow is an all new experience. Every one of the thirteen songs could have been selected as a single, but instead the pieces form an organically homogeneous collection, put forth and displayed together inside the institution after which it is named. This is an album made manifest by - and for - people who like albums.
Museum Of Tomorrow is an exhilarating, nonstop sensory indulgence, a low altitude magic carpet ride at breakneck speed over the detailed insanity of the early 21st century, drenched in science fiction and retro-futurist imagery and themes. Despite the darkness of some of the subject matter, the lyrics are playful and as bright as colored vinyl. No mere time-capsule or bleak survey of dystopian protest themes, this is a fully immersive experience. Drunk on its own richness, it hurtles on, twisting its many turns with subtlety, exhibiting mood, style, and pace variance. The trajectory is laid in and the thrusters fire. The listener is pulled headlong into what lies ahead.
From the opening line “We were offered Star Trek, but they fed us Soylent Green” - which is etched into the vinyl - science fiction abounds within the music, positioning The Now simultaneously in the Future and in the Past. We all exist on the edge of forever. Thus the album was conceived as two seamless sides, and with this in mind from the outset the vinyl LP was mastered as two complete extended pieces: Gallery One and Gallery Two. Korg synthesizer lines (reminiscent of classic sci-fi incidental music) and sound-collages link the gapless songs.
There are CD and vinyl versions available. The Deluxe LP edition of Museum Of Tomorrow is in 170g heavy weight vinyl, skillfully mastered specifically for vinyl purposes at Vibratone Sound Studio in Manchester and pressed in a split-issue of traditional black and also a very limited run in glorious color. Both the vinyl editions also include a sixteen page full-color printed and bound Exhibition Guide containing the lyrics, plus a full color inner sleeve, a separate picture insert, a sticker, a pair of badges/buttons, and yes, even a bookmark to easily find your favorite lyrics.
So, when leaving, remember to exit through the Big Stir Records gift shop and select your choice of souvenirs from the Museum Of Tomorrow. Your ears may be ringing from the guitars, drums, and impassioned vocals, and you will have felt the sting of the astute social commentary and barbed humor. But you'll want something to remind you of this journey through a “Zombie Century”... a “Shadow Factory”... a plane of “Virtual Reality” between an “Impossible Past” and “Tomorrow's World”. Or better yet, just flip the LP over and play it again. It all feels a bit cyclical, doesn't it? And we would be lost without THE SPEED OF SOUND as our guides. This future is theirs, and yours, for the asking.
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Tomorrow's World 2:470:00/2:47
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Opium Eyes 1:440:00/1:44
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Smokescreen 2:510:00/2:51
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Zombie Century 2:560:00/2:56
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Wired And Tired 2:300:00/2:30
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0:00/3:12
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Shadow Factory 3:180:00/3:18
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Impossible Past 3:230:00/3:23
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Leaf Blower 3:250:00/3:25
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0:00/2:46
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Charlotte 3:030:00/3:03
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0:00/2:43
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Last Orders 2:340:00/2:34