News

* * * 'Smudges And Smears' - Out 15 October * * *

Welcome to the official website of M. A. Tovey. Alexandra's brand new album, 'Smudges And Smears', is now available to download - free of charge - from here, because Alexandra's a bit of a Marxist like that.

The new set features the lead singles 'Fingerprints', 'I Guess That's Why They Call Her The Mirror Girl', 'A Rose By Any Other Name Still Has Thorns' and 'Sleep Inside A Chrysalis', the latter three previously having appeared on this summer's 'Mirror Girl' EP.

With this latest addition to the portfolio, Alexandra is very much looking forward to achieving gold status in Oz while making inroads into Narnian popular culture.

* * * New Single - 'Fingerprints' - Released On 10 September * * *

More free, new, hot-off-the-motherboard material already! Joining the new EP, last month's 'Mirror Girl' in the current M. A. releases section of your local Woolworths is the shiny new single, 'Fingerprints' - a great big slushy bleeding heart power ballad, no contrition is there in saying - and its swiftly hammered out b-side 'Untitled Album Track'. You can download both from here. Hey, it's only post-Antarctican noseflute glitch-folk thrashcore, but I like it...

* * * New EP - 'Mirror Girl' - Released On 27 August * * *

The five-track 'Mirror Girl' EP, Alexandra's first new material since last winter, is now available for free download from here. This record been an eventful and tangential six months in the oven, sharing a metallic shelf with a slew of other new tracks that will be forced into the netsphere shortly in the guise of the new album. Some of you may notice that January's '2011: A Very Narrow Year' is still listed as the current single - this is because there is new page for current EPs, meaning that they and singles can from now on run concurrently as separate entities - much like they did in the '60s, in fact. In fact, '...Narrow Year' would indeed now be listed as an EP itself - but as it stands, 'Mirror Girl' is the first of this new format, and means that there are plans on the technical drawing grindstone for a separate new 7" vinyl disc in the next couple of weeks. So keep 'em peeled, as speccy telly presenter-cum-'80s celebrity busybody Shaw Taylor used to tell us...

* * * New EP Released On 29 January! * * *

Welcome to a progressively industrious 2011! The new single - an EP, or even triple 'a' side, if you like - is now available to download above. (Or alternatively, if Matt Cardle's recent epochal victory for the triplet causes of meaningful quality music, Bonio-style world peace and cheeky-bloke-cum-all-round-entertainers from Essex on 'The X Factor' has thrashed the will to live from your oppressed palms, with the result that you find your bones too frail to drag the mouse up that far, you can also access it...below! Remember, someone somewhere cares.) The new offering is titled '2011: A Very Narrow Year' (because...well, it just is, innit) and features a triad of brand new songs about equations, storage facilities and, as ever, annoying folk.

* * * And Another New Album Already! * * *

Hey, determined not to be outdone by the scything current work rate of those Tears For Fears, following on a mere six weeks after her most recent 'regular' album, 'I Hate These Times', Alexandra already has a new long player flying from the shelves of Our Price! Its name is 'Tentative Reverberations' and in truth, it's not exactly an album in the usual sense of the term; rather, an album-length 'piece' intended to be heard and appreciated in isolation from any other sonic influences. Recorded in a single frosty evening in late January, it's not likely to be to everyone's taste...so if you find it doesn't whet your palate, that's cool, 'cause Lexy's already working on a 38th album per se, hopefully to emerge blinking from the bunker in early springtime. Cya l8rs!

* * * The New Album...'I Hate These Times'...! * * *

The new album, Alexandra's 36th, is now available for purchase from all reputable foot spa outlets and unregistered back street abortionists' clinics. Oh, and also to download from this website, for bugger all cash. Don't worry, some of us will never take leave of our Marxist sensibilities. So, instead of simultaneously mourning the way things used to be and cursing the electronic information critical mass and hard right concrete Ballardian dystopia when it takes hold, seize now with sweaty palms prostate this golden opportunity to remain safe in the knowledge that you made the most of things that used to be when they used to be...by downloading 'I Hate These Times' - for free - to your contraption. See, it's still only 2010. You still have time! And hey, merry Xmas, yeah.

* * * 'Broken Brakes (Candle Song)' / 'Fuck Your Misogynist Ass' - Out Now! * * *

The new single, the above double 'a' side extravaganza of post-modern cut-and-paste soul, is now available for free download. The 'a' side is an 11th-hour additional trailer for the new album, 'I Hate These Times', and therefore the first M. A. single in aeons not initially destined to be featured on a '45'. Interesting coggage, huh...? The 'aa' side is an exclusive new track written and recorded while the new album was in post-production, and as such will not be featured there. Neither will the exclusive 'b' side, an ivory-tinkling rant about heroes with depressing political persuasions...with no words! Never let it be said that this girl can't push the envelope!

Oh, and it should be mentioned that, with 2010 at a close, Garlands, the second collaborative project Lexy worked on this year with another musician has, like its predecessor Breaking Communications, now folded. Also, as with BC, the reasons for the collaboration's demise have been personal as much as musical, which is rather sad, but very much the territory. However, unlike with BC, no recorded material surfaced from Garlands, so the two respectably-received shows - at the Way Out Club on 5 June and Bar Wotever on 7 September - will remain its legacy. Let's hope that any new musical 'pursuits' Lexy may become involved with in 2011 have the ability to at least last out the year! And hey, if anyone out there needs a keyboardist, bassist or general Matron Of Electronics, she's open to any ideas!

* * * 'Stealth So Deep' / 'I Need To Wake Up' - Out Now! * * *

Just to let you know, M A's new single is now available to download - for free, of course (hey, we're in 1979-vintage retro-active socialist post punk territory here, comrade). Her 89th '45' (as used to be back in them days, blub), 'Stealth So Deep (Dorian)' / 'I Need To Wake Up' is another double 'a' side to add to a somewhat lengthy list. Hey, you just can't keep this girl down, however brightly and/or hotly your internal inferno to do so may blaze!

'Stealth...' / '...Wake...' is planned as the final single to be hatched from the 36th album sessions, which are wrapping up as we very natter. Up until fairly recently, the working title for this embryonic opus had been 'Saved!', as it seemed a nicely dramatic sentiment and, well, there happens to be a track by that name amongst the material the sessions have so far yielded. However, on abruptly remembering that one Saint Robert of Zimmerframe had released an album of the same name - and a somewhat nutty, religious affair to boot - back in 1980, M. A. considered it a cop-out to indulge in such a zerox of such a powerful and iconic statement, and as such amended the title to something that reflects the way she feels about the current knuckle-dragging national zeitgeist. Therefore, it shall now be called 'I Hate These Times'. Natch.

* * * 'Noise On The Ship' - Available At Last! * * *

And it's big news time! The legendary lost 'Black Album' of M. A.'s canon, namely 2009's 'Noise On The Ship', is finally online and available for free download - just follow the links from the heading! This collection was initially released in December last year, although due to a plethora of the usual potholes life loves to direct at its subjects akin to a rebellious child flicking peas from a plastic Teletubbies plate, only now does it find its way, blinking, red-eyed and blistered into the cyber firmament. Lest we forget, this is the home of 2009 singles 'Won't Someone Tell Me?' and the genuinely well-received 'Key On A Chain', and heck it to hell and back, it's not even a year old yet, so not quite a fossilized museum curiosity yet. Add to ye iPods, add!

* * * And Also... * * *

Missing in electronic action alongside 'Noise On The Ship' was its third offspring, the 'You Knew I Was Anger' / 'Something Not Worth Saving' double 'a', an upbeat pop belter coupled with a downbeat pop mooner backed with a midbeat electronic rumination. All three are now available, either from the singles page (listed as catalogue number MATSIN86) or from their parent album.

Many thanks for visiting.

15.10.2011