Tranquility Falls

 The latest video for the Cornucopia mega-album project has its Premiere today, thanks once again to Vive Le Rock magazine who have been very supportive - here is Tranquility Falls: (click the track art work to go to the video)

Manchester psych explorers THE SPEED OF SOUND have unveiled a final video from their mammoth A Cornucopia triple album.

Taken from part two of the triptych, Victory, "'Tranquility Falls' describes the moment when an enveloping inner peace descends, becoming at one both internally with the immediate surroundings and also with the wider outside world - largely possible through looking further afield in the context of the whole universe or by focusing on the minute detail. Uplifting and joyous, it revels in serenity, but this is an all embracing serenity with a booming heavy bass and entwined guitar lines expanding and echoing through space rather than a mere silent mindfulness exercise."

Available on vinyl, CD and digitally, A Cornucopia is available here.

new video Premiere via Vive Le Rock

 Huge thanks to Vive Le Rock for hosting the video Premiere for SS-100-X today! 

"Mancunian psych-explorers THE SPEED OF SOUND unveil another new video. The cryptically titled 'SS 100 X' is taken from their triple album A Corncucopia, released last year through Big Stir."Spreading like a virus, conspiracy theories have gone mainstream and it all seems to have started long ago with the Kennedy assassination," say the band. "The simple and chaotic explanation of anything is now routinely jettisoned in favour of swirling dark forces and a wilful maliciousness to recognise anything as fact, instead everything is an issue of unshakeable faith in the existence of a sinister deeper plot. The video intentionally uses A.I generated images of variable quality to mix fact with speculation and inference, to match the post-fact world environment of the 21st century."

the article is here

Eight Fourteen Monday

Thanks again to Vive Le Rock magazine for another video premiere! This time it's the turn of Eight Fourteen Monday to get a visual treatment. Click the image to go to the premiere.

"Manc psych explorers THE SPEED OF SOUND have unveiled another new video from their mammoth Cornucopia project.

Three albums in one, 'Eight Fourteen Monday' is taken from the Minerva album, the other two discs in the set being Victory and Bounty.

"Light and airy the music contrasts with the imagery of a dark and gloomy early Monday Manchester morning commute," says the band's John Armstrong. "The inevitable announcements of delays and cancelations say 'We would like to apologise', rather than ‘We apologise'; a subtle difference with a totally different meaning. Everyone is wrapped in their own thoughts and staring at their phones, retreating internally to avoid thinking about the discomfort of the journey. Eighty years ago the bomb fell above Hiroshima at eight fourteen on a Monday."

There are four different artworks for the single:

Permafrost

From the second disc of A Cornucopia, Permafrost was written in the heat of a hotel balcony in Portugal in 2019; before anyone had heard of covid or lockdown. 

Instead the overpowering sense of frozen inertia and stasis evoked within Permafrost's chord structure and melody comes from the seventeenth century frost fairs held on the icebound river Thames. Bonfires were actually lit midstream, the ice was solid enough to support them.

A hauntingly unusual chord sequence, with an implied but non-existent key change and some wonderful muted trumpet from Bob Dinn. It fits the weird post-festive time of January where time stretches and the month seems as though its weeks are repeating. 

Physical; Vinyl and CD and also the downloads are here: https://www.thespeedofsounduk.com/shop-2/

Apocalypse Metropolis

Apocalypse Metropolis is taken from The Speed Of Sound's 'Victory' album, which itself is the 2nd disc of the 'A Cornucopia' trinity. Twinned musically with Apocalypse Acropolis, linked yet totally different in approach, feel and sound. Apocalypse Metropolis envisions a bright, bustling, busy cityscape, of traffic noise and neon lighting creating shadows and glamour, reflecting a civilisation continuing onwards unaware of its imminent collapse. 

A three line phrase skates across eight bars and then shifts in 3/4 time as Bob Dinn’s glorious trumpet is given free rein while ascending piano and vocal harmonies combine with a first Speed Of Sound usage of a string section. This is the very definition of the unexpected.

Physically A Cornucopia can be found on vinyl and CD here: https://www.thespeedofsounduk.com/shop-2/ and the download is here:  

Click the image to go direct to You Tube

https://thespeedofsound.bandcamp.com/album/a-cornucopia-pt-2-victory

The whole trinity

 All three segments of A Cornucopia are now up there on the streamers you can find all the links here; https://thespeedofsound.hearnow.com/a-cornucopia-pt-3-bounty  and mega thanks to Vive Le Rock for hosting the video premiere for Jaunt the latest Conrnucopia track to have a video visualisation and here it is:

Click on the image to go to the preview.

Manchester psych mob THE SPEED OF SOUND have unveiled another new video from their triple album A Cornucopia.

The sprightly 'Jaunt' is taken from the album's third disc Bounty, which is now available to stream here.

"Vigorous and stompingly crunchy, 'Jaunt' is a recklessly and incautiously fast garage-punker, sporting a mutated blues pattern with an added horn section while channelling the party energy of the B-52s," say the band. "'Jaunt' fits neatly into the rock-and-roll genre of 'Instructional Dance Song’, alongside 'The Timewarp' with the added 'Twist' of encouraging the next step in human evolution. 

"As David Bowie said in 'Oh You Pretty Things': 'gotta make way for the homosuperior'. Express your individuality, be the future and maybe gain the added benefit of telepathic and teleporting powers; either way this is about expressing individuality and having a great time doing it."

Victory

Another fabulous review for A Cornucopia: Victory, the second disc of our 2024 Mega Album. 

Ringmaster reviews - "In a year marking their 35-year anniversary, THE SPEED OF SOUND has certainly lit up the celebration with their new A Cornucopia: album trilogy and continue to with the release of the second full-length in the sonic triptych. A Cornucopia: Victory was initially available as part of the Deluxe Three-Disc CD and Vinyl Editions that were released with the digital unveiling of part one, Minerva in May via Big Stir Records. A few days ago the second part of the triplet received its own singular digital release and fair to say that if Minerva lit your fires, Victory will spark a blaze.

For us Victory is an even bolder and richer adventure than its striking predecessor, The UK outfit weaving an even more eclectic and unpredictable escapade for ears and the imagination alike. Manchester hailing, THE SPEED OF SOUND has come a long way in sound and presence since forming back in 1989. Recent years though have truly seen broad attention and keen acclaim gather around them, the release of their critically acclaimed 2021 album Museum Of Tomorrow a major spark in that escalation and of course now the A Cornucopia: collection.

Consisting of father and son John Armstrong (guitars and vocals) and Henry Armstrong (keyboards), Ann-Marie Crowley (vocals and guitar), Kevin Roache (bass guitar), and John Broadhurst (drums) The Speed of Sound is generally described as an indie rock / power pop outfit. They have always had an ever evolving sound that has almost disputed the slim view of that tagging though and within Victory they challenge it with glee and mischief. Even so, they have also bred a creative presence and musical voice that is distinct and obvious to them.

Victory opens with the shadowed wrapped Apocalypse Acropolis, a song contemplating a crumbled landscape around the remnants of a lost civilisation. The song shares a melancholically lit musing within a stroll as infectious as it is on the edge of despondency, a provocative proposal for body and thought alike which with every listen seems more poignant and compelling to every moment clouding and despoiling today.

It is a strong and alluring start to the release that the following From The Cradle To The Stars adds even greater persuasion to with its ethereal charm and lyrical consideration of again a world in chaos but the potential to make amends from the personal to the societal.  As within its predecessor and across the album, Crowley is radiance in voice, celestial harmonies and presence. Around her guitars equally weave a seductive coaxing as rhythms set steady manipulation within the evanescent yet lingering and dreamy earth bound sunspot.

Go For It is next up and revels in the band’s new wave and punk rock instincts, a song drawing on seventies power pop as much as psych rock and post punk inclinations. Epitomising the multi-varied richness of the album and THE SPEED OF SOUND enterprise yet also its organic breeding, the track soon had a hand on favourite tracks honours if challenged throughout Victory with Underground a quick rival. The song instantly weaves a guitar spun indie rock proposal, John Armstrong’s Tom Verlaine-esque vocals defiant in voice and emotion and in fine union with Ann-Marie Crowley. Celebrating the unity of those ignored and often laying hidden from the powers that be, in music but life too, and persistently nagging with its great sonic jangle, the track proved thick captivation.

Lyrically linking to the last song and urging the risk and bravery of following one’s creative heart, Rock Paper Scissors soon held court on reassessing best track moment with its exotic exploration. Cast with psych rock lit tempting and a cosmopolitan infused imagination of sound, the track seduced as it fascinated. Crossing and merging landscapes of world travelling enterprise and other realm intimating possibilities, the song offers pure adventure and one delicious moment to immerse within.

 X-Y Axis stirs a more melodic punk meets sixties garage rock involvement next, its sound decades embracing yet a fresh voracious wind for the now as too is The Same River with its indie pop candour and in turn the rock ‘n’ roll contagion that is A Walk By The Sea. Both of the latter songs provide a fusion of nostalgia and new adventure, the first with its acoustically charged heart a certain blues pop hot spot within the release.

With the excellent E to F uncaging late seventies inspired noise/indie pop shenanigans with feral rock instincts, the album only held tighter grip on ears before the following instrumental Apocalypse Metropolis sparked ears and the imagination to endorse that dense union. The second of the two proved manna to thought and joy, the track like a possibilities rich view on what might have been if the destruction that the album’s opener surveys had been averted.

Across the thought evoking proposal and eagerly infectious canter of Empathic Reaction and through the chilled almost haunting historical reflection of Permafrost, band and album again pulled emotions into their own provocative explorations. Each track again aligns the separate past with the uniqueness of the now, the harmonic climactic winds of the former a sweeping involvement and the jazzy musing of the latter with the trumpet of Bob Dinn providing evocative flaming to its suggestive shadows, darkly enthralling.

The album is closed out by firstly Monsoon, a pop jangling moment of drama and suggestive revelry basking in the release of supressed emotions and joy and lastly with the again almost transcendental realm and beauty of Tranquility Falls. The pair took us on individual adventures proving so easy to explore, success that every moment and breath of Victory shared with our appetites and instincts here."

You can find the piece here: https://ringmasterreviewintroduces.wordpress.com/2024/10/18/the-speed-of-sound-a-cornucopia-victory/ 

and all the links for the album are here: https://victorythespeedofsound.hearnow.com/a-cornucopia-pt-2-victory 

Victory

Thanks to Dave Franklin and NYCs The Big Takeover for their review of Victory - which goes live on streaming on 20th September and is already available physically: 

"If Minerva was the first piece of the triptych jigsaw that makes up a set called A Cornucopia: Minerva, Victory, Bounty, then it may come as no surprise to find that Victory, The Speed of Sound’s latest album, is the second installment in the series. And if that first one proved to be fun and eclectic, exploratory and unique, then at least your expectations are set for this new sonic adventure. To be honest, anyone following the Speed of Sound story for the last few years…or 35, will already be braced to expect, if not the unexpected, then at least the unusual, challenging, and thoroughly rewarding.

But if Minerva sought to stick two fingers up to the powers-that-be of the record label-dominated music scene, Victory perhaps takes a more laid-back approach. The songs are still laced with optimism and a sense of liberation, but they seem to be less picking a fight and just happy to make some less pointed points.

One of the main points is about the joy of making music for the sake of it, art for art’s sake. So here we find a collection of songs, and indeed a band, that isn’t looking to get rich, famous, look cool, or even be noticed but instead revel in the pleasures of creativity and expression.

Ironically, it is this freedom to not play the game enables them to produce songs that could easily be chart contenders in a more discerning world. If opener “Apocalypse Acropolis” feels like a tentative start, when taken as one half of the bookend set with “Apocalypse Metropolis,” its more measured way makes sense against its partner’s beat-driven, hazy vocals and trumpet-riffed nature.

Recent single, “Underground,” might not look to the mainstream for admirers. Still, those of us who have been around the block a few times will recognize its blend of indie and pop and slightly rawer edges, its jangling guitars and shuffling beats, sing-along refrains, and alternative ways, as precisely the sort of thing that used to create the unusual high points and left-field guile that occasionally peppered the 80’s charts as the wave of post-punk attitudes merged into a new pop sound.

And then there are tracks like “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” which revel in their otherness, a cornucopia (wink wink) of Eastern vibes and raga beats, a blend of masala rock that builds a bridge between late-era Beatles and bands such as Orphaned Land.

I guess when you stop conforming to the rules and regulations set by those around you, when you decide to leave the game and make music on your terms, that is when you make the music that matters, to you at least, music that goes where you want it to go, sounds the way you want it to sound and says what you want it to say. I’m sure Speed of Sound has always had such an attitude, but albums like A Cornucopia: Victory and the set that it is a part of are the perfect rallying point for those who don’t want to be dictated to…both music makers and those who want to listen to something new, authentic and different." 

The Big Takeover: https://bigtakeover.com/recordings/the-speed-of-sound-victory-big-stir-records 

All Links for Victory (physical/streaming/download): https://victorythespeedofsound.hearnow.com/a-cornucopia-pt-2-victory 

The Same River - Video Premiere

 Thanks to Rock At Night Magazine for premiering the video for The Same River, the latest visual instalment of A Cornucopia and the second track taken from disc two of A Cornucopia. 

Click the track image to go to the video on YouTube 

The Same River is an anti-nostalgia song, suggesting living in the moment is better than living in the past. Previous time can not be recreated, and once it has passed neither can the present. Grasp life and live it rather than trying to inhabit an illusion of what may have been.

The Rock At Night piece is here: https://www.rockatnight.com/2024/08/rock-at-night-video-premiere-uk-band-the-speed-of-sounds-the-same-river/

New single from A Cornucopia

AND: Mind Palace is now a stand alone single as well as being track six on the first disc of the A Cornucopia trinity of albums.

With a video premiere on Vive Le Rock Magazine's website too. (Click the single sleeve image to go to the premiere.)

As they say: 

Mancunian psych explorers THE SPEED OF SOUND are back with another new single and video.Taken from their new triple album A Cornucopia,'Mind Palace'is described by the band as a "homage to individual identity, memory and self-awareness. Not the rose-tint re-run memory of nostalgia, rather the interactive memory that makes up the essence of a person; their very being. Sparked by a visit to Sintra Palace in Portugal and recalling a Sherlock Holmes memory-file technique, 'Mind Palace' ponders the loss of self with fading memory while the twelve-string Rickenbacker chimes and canters."

And they are correct we are explorers, it is what we have always done with music.

Find the whole full physical trinity of albums here: https://bigstirrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-cornucopia-minerva  

Its here - A Cornucopia: Minerva

We do. We like albums. Especially when they are structured as a whole, becoming far more than a bunch of songs. The ability albums have of developing a dynamic trajectory and then resolve the overall sonic shapeshifting adventure over the course of 40+minutes is fascinating. So much so, that we did it three times in this release. A Cornucopia is physically a set of three related but separate albums, however digitally (including streaming) it is having a staggered release with only Minerva hitting the streaming platforms now, meaning there are two additional exclusively physical albums. The three - Minerva, Victory and Bounty - function independently, but despite the variation within them were written to feel unified. Minerva and Victory are gapless, final chords and first chords complement (or occasionally contrast) each other. As with a well designed live set the tempo and key variations are sculpted to create an experience. Its not background music, music should be more than an accompaniment to doing something else. Music itself is the main event. So, yes: We like albums. We made these for people that like albums.

So; for streaming look wherever you would normally look and you'll find it. For the CD or LP click the image. Or if you don't like paying postage you can order the CD from any record shop.

Trickledown video Premiere

Thanks to The Spill Magazine in Canada for their Premiere of the video for Trickledown and their ace accompanying review:

"Music is the stuff of magic – or is it sonic alchemy? Whatever you may call it, today we have the pleasure of introducing “Trickledown”, the latest audio-visual offering from Manchester powerpop / indie rockers The Speed Of Sound, a quintet made up of father and son John Armstrong (guitars and vocals) and Henry Armstrong (keyboards), Ann-Marie Crowley (vocals and guitar), Kevin Roache (bass guitar) and John Broadhurst (drums).

The new single comes on the trail of “The Great Acceleration” and the album’s lead track “West Wind”. the band reveals the final single from their new album A Cornucopia: Minerva, released by American cult label Big Stir Records. With a measured pace, a sense of spaciousness and Crowley’s unique vocals, we arrive at a sound recalling a more chilled-out Jefferson Airplane. Taking into consideration all three singles previewed to date, it’s clear that the sonic kaleidoscope presented on The Speed of Sound’s new album is worth the wait – a musical compass in a direction we should all explore.

Full of ambition, energy, and eccentric melodic brilliance, this is the first record of the three-album set A Cornucopia: Minerva, Victory, Bounty from these future-retro-modernist garage-psych stalwarts. While these albums will see digital editions over the next year, the Vinyl and CD versions are 3-disc sets carrying the umbrella title A Cornucopia. Released as deluxe editions, each set includes two full-length bonus albums Victory and Bounty. But it all begins with Minerva. 

With A Cornucopia: Minerva coinciding with the band’s 35th anniversary, The Speed Of Sound returns triumphant, defiant and redemptive, following up their 2021 critically acclaimed album Museum Of Tomorrow. Named for the goddess associated with wisdom, the arts and strategic warfare, this album explores themes of resistance to mainstream cultural dominance, championing individual identity and artistic creativity whilst being a vigorous musical celebration of subcultural existence in the face of predominantly bland pop culture.

‘Minerva’ presents 14 fresh and variegated tracks, each one a burst of differently-hued radio friendly sonic technicolor. These new pieces range from the recklessly fast Bo Diddley rhythm successfully merged with a Wagnerian horn section of lead single “West Wind” to the haunting and spacious ballad critiquing Economic Theory that is “Trickledown” to the stripped back mediaeval folk-tinged starkness of “The Harvest” to the stratospheric vastness of “The Great Acceleration”.The album passes seamlessly 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” to 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”, onwards to the punkifed 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 expand from their base-camp foundation of multiple 1960s, punk and 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 whilst retaining hooks and melodic sensibility, plus the sharp barbed wit, lyrical depth and all-pervading sense of joy that form the irrepressible, uplifting hallmarks of this band.Throughout their 35-year history, The Speed Of Sound have continuously produced music laced with optimism and lyrical bite, tapping the DIY ethos of punk and the restless lust for experimentation of psychedelia. Formed in 1989 with a pre-history dating back to the day Andy Warhol died in 1987, their music has always been idiosyncratic, counter-intuitive and perpetually looking for something new.On May 24, Minerva will be released on CD and vinyl via Big Stir Records. The full A Cornucopia collection is available via Bandcamp."

The Great Acceleration

 Thanks to Joyzine for their Premiere of the video for The Great Acceleration which you can find here:

Click the image to go to the premiere!

The Great Acceleration is somewhat epic in nature and there is a lot going on in there sonically as well as visually as this still showing Aylesbury stone circle in a scrapyard next to Windscale nuclear reactor might suggest.  

Single release day

The first day a new project steps into the outside world is always exciting and West Wind is now the first of the Cornucopia project pieces to break out be heard and also seen, huge thanks to Vive Le Rock magazine for giving the video a premiere on their website and for calling us Psychonauts! 

"Long-serving Manchester psychonauts THE SPEED OF SOUND are back with a brand new video which they're premiering with Vive Le Rock!

Described as "recklessly fast and invigorating rock and roll, borrowing a Bo Diddley beat cunningly melded with a Wagnerian horn section," 'West Wind' is the lead track from the band's forthcoming new album.

“Lyrically this is a protest song," says singer, guitarist and songwriter John Armstrong. "A metaphor for the dominance of the all-pervading major label ‘music industry’ onslaught, snowplowing independent artists out of the way.”

Out today through L.A. label Big Stir Records, 'West Wind' is available to stream/download here."

And! Here is the video... click the image to watch on YouTube:

 

West Wind

2024 has an entire cornucopia of releases lined up and the first of these is the new single; West Wind. It is out on 5th April and you'll find all the links a little further down:

As the official label press release says:

"Veteran Manchester, UK-based Future-Retro-Modernist rockers The Speed Of Sound return to kick off a year of with a 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 5th and is up for pre-order and pre-save now"

In case that didn't make it clear we can add that it kicks. Big time. 

You'll find it here : https://orcd.co/speedofsound-ww

a Video Premiere for Zombie Century

And in an appropriately spooky touch of unplanned yet synchronised occurrences, our latest video has it's premiere today on Rock At Night Magazine and it is Zombie Century which coincides with Big Stir Records (also new) Stir The Cauldron compilation. Here's the link... 

Zombie Century can be found on Big Stir Records compilation Stir The Cauldron and also on The Speed Of Sound's Museum Of Tomorrow album.

Zombies and more seasonal horror

 Our own Zombie Century is enjoying itself among excellent company on the brand new Big Stir Records compilation Stir The Cauldron you can find it and more info here

Extended 12" Single - Double-A-Side

 Happy Birthday to Museum Of Tomorrow and A New Single... So, this is Birthday week for our Museum Of Tomorrow album and astoundingly it is still getting multiple daily radio play twelve months on from release, it really is incredible that it is still current - Radio TFSC in Germany placed one of the tracks in their current top 25 last week. Amazing.

And: To mark the anniversary we have a new release!

A double A-sided single with the full version of Virtual Reality (the album of course contains only 'Part 2') and an extended version of Charlotte, both tracks are well over six minutes and simply wouldn't fit on the vinyl LP so they form an appendix to the album and are what a 12" single used to be.

Release day is Friday 16th September. So get your fill of Future Retro Modernism over on Big Stir Records bandcamp page: https://bigstirrecords.bandcamp.com/album/double-a-extended-12-single or take your pick of streaming platform here: https://orcd.co/thespeedofsound-doublea 

The One Click To Everywhere Link for Museum Of Tomorrow; stream, digital or physical (vinyl or CD) this is the link:

Click on the image to go to the page.

Everything is there.

One click.

One link.

One place.

Museum Of Tomorrow: the new album is docking. Pre-Order/Order link is live

And here it is; rapidly approaching the docking bay and ready to make planetfall on Earth. 

The Speed Of Sound Museum Of Tomorrow.

The link goes direct to Big Stir Records web-shop and includes all four format options: Deluxe Heavy Mystery Colour Vinyl, Deluxe Heavy Infinity Black Vinyl, High Quality Glass-Pressed Replicated Compact Disc and Digital.

Prices are expressed in USD, however stock is held on both sides of the Atlantic so there is flat rate world wide shipping.

https://www.bigstirrecords.com/the-speed-of-sound