OG Dry Leaf Disc press of Shadow Ring's mucky debut City Lights - (NM)
Dissolving a shared passion for fringe art and music, Graham Lambkin and Darren Harris formed The Shadow Ring in their hometown of Folkestone and willed into being a crudely disaffected and crumbling sort of psychedelia - a distinctly english malaise of monotony and queasy masculine self pity, a morosely enchanted mundanity. Beyond slack and barely held together the duo starkly capture a feral car-boot bleakness, a feverish landscape of coastal gargoyles trapped in a cycle of domesticated habitual horror.
City Lights, their self recorded and released debut described by Lambkin as a “microscopic examination of leisure activities” sets in motion an absurdist coming of age tale centred around disappointing local nightclubs and hangovers. About as stripped back and sonically direct as they get, bursts of blunt guitar and dulled drums incoherently wash over the pair’s sing-song poetry - mostly unravelling into not so much a groove as a creaking lurch. The most British music ever. (Mint / New)
Tracklist A1 Double Standard. 5:15 A2 City Lights. 3:29 A3 Oooh Ahh. 3:41 A4 Cape Of Seaweed. 4:40 A5 Lyin' Eyes. 0:50 A6 Cold Coffee. 2:19 B1 Here Come The Candles. 3:40 B2 Faithful Calls. 9:40 B3 White Eyes. 2:43 B4 The Visitor. 6:08 B5 Snowbirds Of Alkatraz. 2:42
