The Shadow Ring – 1992-2002

Label:    Blank Forms Editions – BF–046—057
Format:     11 x CD, Compilation
DVD, DVD-Video
Country:    US
Released:    Jun 2024
Genre:    Rock
Style:    Avantgarde, Experimental

HOLY MOLY, MORE SOON. (Mint / New)

At last: the long-awaited box set surveying The Shadow Ring's prolific, decade-long existence. Eleven CDs, one DVD, and a more than 450-page book featuring a detailed biographical essay, hundreds of photographs, ten interviews, a complete discography with lyrics, and rarely-seen ephemera.

The Shadow Ring (1992–2002) presents a comprehensive overview of the work produced by British musicians Graham Lambkin, Darren Harris, and later Tim Goss over the course of a decade. Throughout their legendary ten-year run, this shambolic rock outfit, formed by a group of teenagers in the port town Folkestone, were an enigmatic force on the international musical sub-underground. The group have left behind a mighty run of eight LPs, a handful of 7-inches, and a spate of raucous live shows and cryptic zine appearances on both sides of the Atlantic. Collected here for the first time are The Shadow Ring’s live cuts, rarities, and complete commercial releases, spread out across eleven CDs and a DVD, accompanied by an nearly five-hundred-page book that includes a monographic biographical survey, more than one hundred color photos, a comprehensive discography with transcribed lyrics, and a selection of zine appearances, fliers, postcards, and other miscellanea. In aggregate, this significant collection not only plums the depths of the band and its attendant lore, but reveals a vivid minor history of mail-order networks, bedroom recording sessions, cross-USA couch-surfing, and encounters with fellow travelers such The Dead C, Harry Pussy, Charalambides, Richard Youngs and the No-Neck Blues Band. Where is the connecting thread between Ralf Wehowsky and Squirrel Nut Zippers? Inquire within.

The roughly 200 songs in this set trace the band from its earliest days recording in Lambkin’s parents’ house (SHP Studios), through its brooding mid-period, garnering word-of-mouth notoriety that peaked with the trio turning down an invitation to tour with Pavement, to a string of increasingly uncompromising experiments with electronics, voice, and tape. Although the band’s sound morphs considerably during this time period, from spartan beginnings using pots and pans as a drum set to their ultra-deconstructed latter-day approach, certain core sensibilities are apparent throughout: brash youthful rawness, wry and morbid lyricism, stripped-down angularity, and a penchant for atmospherics. This boxset, featuring every record and single, and buttressed by twenty-nine rarely-heard recordings, including proto-Shadow Ring projects such as the Cat & Bells Club and Footprint cassettes, and their unearthed final CD-R Darren Harris Reads Graham Lambkin, presents the first opportunity to hear this arc in full. The ebbs and flows of the band—their schoolboy beginnings, initial successes, first shows and tours, life milestones, and Lambkin’s gradual development as a solo artist—are painstakingly detailed in a sizable band history-cum-Künstlerroman by Blank Forms artistic director Lawrence Kumpf, illustrated with candid photos, sketches, letters, newspaper clippings, and other ephemera. The music and videos can speak for themselves, but taken as a mass, this collection makes sense of the group’s utter uncanniness without comprising one iota of their mystique, bringing something new to the table for completionists and the uninitiated alike. 

Tracklist
1992 South Of The Island    
CD1-1        Claw Fight    3:45
CD1-2        Father's Dead    1:30
CD1-3        Pipe Fly    2:11
CD1-4        Prallo By Window    4:24
CD1-5        Opal    1:33
CD1-6        Electric Soup    2:22
CD1-7        Pound Coins    2:46
CD1-8        Oak Key    1:17
CD1-9        Cut Thread    2:39
CD1-10        Coffee House    2:07
CD1-11        Salt Would    3:13
CD1-12        Spanish Donkey    3:01
CD1-13        Raven Chest    3:06
CD1-14        Chip Blue Ceap    1:26
CD1-15        Theme'ers    2:42
CD1-16        Paper Release    2:34
CD1-17        A Fairwell Rive    0:32
CD1-18        The Co-operative    3:43
CD1-19        C-Town Breeding Ground    2:46
CD1-20        The Golden Gate    2:43
CD1-21        Dietary Complex    2:02
CD1-22        Cave Of Ice Cats    4:03
CD1-23        Kent Custer    3:29
CD1-24        The Garden Party    9:24
1992 Curtain Of The Unknown Speech    
CD2-1        Footprints In Milk    17:38
CD2-2        Fire Melts Faster Than Ice    5:54
CD2-3        The Drama Of High Clack Clack    6:18
CD2-4        Wooden Fishes In Their Juices    12:08
CD2-5        Fire Felts Master The Ice    4:50
CD2-6        The Seven Plagues    4:10
CD2-7        Moon By Moon    6:35
CD2-8        A Flash Of 8-Watt    5:50
CD2-9        Evil & Good    2:42
CD2-10        The Warf Of Radnor    5:30
CD2-11        Stools Of Repentance    4:26
1993 Gladly Turning Sun To Stars    
CD3-1        The Iron Ark    4:40
CD3-2        Ark In The Rainclouds    2:42
CD3-3        Don't Open The Window    4:12
CD3-4        The Heavy Foot Of The Lark    4:00
CD3-5        Computer Forms    4:14
CD3-6        Tiny Creatures    4:35
CD3-7        Double Standard    5:20
CD3-8        City Lights    3:36
CD3-9        Oooh Ahh    3:48
CD3-10        Cape Of Seaweed    4:50
CD3-11        Lyin' Eyes    1:00
CD3-12        Cold Coffee    2:26
CD3-13        Here Come The Candles    3:50
CD3-14        Faithful Calls    9:50
CD3-15        White Eyes    2:48
CD3-16        The Visitor    6:22
CD3-17        Snowbirds Of Alkatraz    2:52
CD3-18        All-Frock Colours    4:10
1994-95 The Mirror Of Caves    
CD4-1        Harlequin (Darkest Part Of The Sky)    3:54
CD4-2        Squawk With Me (Version I)    4:34
CD4-3        Horse-Meat Cakes    6:12
CD4-4        Heart, Liver & Lungs    4:03
CD4-5        Put The Music In Its Coffin    3:12
CD4-6        Remembering Old Friends    4:46
CD4-7        Mustard Hooves    3:50
CD4-8        Nocturnal Middle Rumbles    3:22
CD4-9        Caribbean Porridge    5:20
CD4-10        Crystal Tears    5:15
CD4-11        Spin The Animal Dial    5:35
CD4-12        Moonlight In Wings    4:25
CD4-13        Squawk With Me (Version II)    3:20
CD4-14        Birds & Booze    3:56
CD4-15        KFJC (89.7 FM) Radio Spot    0:58
CD4-16        Candle Meat    3:13
CD4-17        Media Egg    3:00
1995-96 Brought Down By Poultry    
CD5-1        Wallet Of Wasps    5:12
CD5-2        Some Of Us    5:56
CD5-3        You're Holding All Your Feathered Stock    6:56
CD5-4        Catching Sight Of Passing Things    15:24
CD5-5        Bush Mice    7:44
CD5-6        Camel Or Carthorse    2:30
CD5-7        Recovered Meat    7:16
CD5-8        Prelude (Rats & Mice)    1:24
CD5-9        Rats & Mice    8:03
CD5-10        V.E.R.M.I.N.    0:34
CD5-11        Gloved Up    3:06
CD5-12        Back Combed Lines    2:30
CD5-13        The Unnatural Crime Of Laying An Egg    4:48
1996-97 Where Two Points Divide    
CD6-1        Trying To Find    3:48
CD6-2        Tuna In Brine    2:44
CD6-3        The New Plague    4:35
CD6-4        Apricot Rat    2:50
CD6-5        Like When (Early Version)    5:22
CD6-6        Hold Onto I.D. (Early Version)    6:44
CD6-7        Watch The Water    6:12
CD6-8        The Way Of The World    5:10
CD6-9        Coombe House    4:53
CD6-10        Wash What You Eat    5:18
CD6-11        Like When    7:44
CD6-12        Basic Everyday Life    4:38
CD6-13        Hold Onto I.D.    7:48
CD6-14        The Way Of The World (II)    0:35
CD6-15        Prawnography    4:52
1997-98 Crossing The Border    
CD7-1        Mouth On Mouse    5:20
CD7-2        Mouse In Mouth    4:36
CD7-3        I Am The Black Piper    3:01
CD7-4        Interlude I    0:42
CD7-5        I Am Lloyd Lyson    3:28
CD7-6        Mindart    1:58
CD7-7        If It Is A Boy    5:44
CD7-8        Interlude II    3:28
CD7-9        X-Ray My Mind    1:40
CD7-10        Don't Say No    1:52
CD7-11        I Am A Lighthouse    3:28
CD7-12        Working For The R.N.L.I.    2:40
CD7-13        Lifesavers    5:09
CD7-14        A Vision    2:46
CD7-15        Disrupt The Band's Breathing    3:35
CD7-16        Oyster Shell    2:18
CD7-17        Interlude III    3:41
CD7-18        Knock Between Doors    2:55
CD7-19        Black Chalk    5:40
CD7-20        Francois DeLoys    1:35
CD7-21        She's A Cracker    2:55
CD7-22        Pig And Hog    3:42
CD7-23        Fish And Hog    3:04
1997-2000 By The Old Army Van    
CD8-1        Egg Bombassa    2:56
CD8-2        Arthuring Tina    1:56
CD8-3        The British Army Can Eat    1:48
CD8-4        The R.A.F. Like A Nibble (I)    2:52
CD8-5        Where Do They Put It    1:54
CD8-6        The R.A.F. Like A Nibble (II)    4:32
CD8-7        Outro-Intro    2:15
CD8-8        The World Phone    3:08
CD8-9        Interlude IV    3:38
CD8-10        Put Out    4:04
CD8-11        C-Out    3:00
CD8-12        New Born    3:26
CD8-13        Scratches    4:00
CD8-14        We're Complex Piss    6:42
CD8-15        Lindus Slideshow    6:07
CD8-16        I Lap It Up    2:18
CD8-17        The Riverside    6:26
CD8-18        Lindus Hologram    4:58
CD8-19        The Liquid Boys    7:26
CD8-20        Mind Blocks Crack    3:18
1999-2002 Singing Or Saying    
CD9-1        Alcove Hair & Hand    1:52
CD9-2        When Entrance Celebrates Champagne    7:08
CD9-3        Kako Dresso    4:32
CD9-4        Ro    4:43
CD9-5        Man On The Land    5:15
CD9-6        Man    6:10
CD9-7        Start Repeating    3:32
CD9-8        Draining    8:33
CD9-9        & In    7:28
CD9-10        I'm Some Songs    4:58
CD9-11        Veehay    3:37
CD9-12        The Flowing    6:52
CD9-13        Shallows    2:42
CD9-14        People    3:26
CD9-15        Their Minds    2:56
CD9-16        And What If    4:03
2001 Just As We Were Leaving    
CD10-1        What's To    1:12
CD10-2        The Body's Unbruised    1:30
CD10-3        Hold It There    2:40
CD10-4        The Brace    1:08
CD10-5        Important Jobs    6:28
CD10-6        Musical Intermission I    1:36
CD10-7        Musical Intermission II    3:03
CD10-8        Dear    10:14
CD10-9        Take Great Care    0:53
Live    
CD11-1        Intro    1:23
CD11-2        Starbird (Live)    3:37
CD11-3        Improvisation (Live)    2:05
CD11-4        Harlequin (Live)    5:45
CD11-5        Tiny Creatures (Live)    3:23
CD11-6        Spin The Animal Dial (Live)    3:47
CD11-7        Put The Music In Its Coffin (Live)    4:21
CD11-8        Wallet Of Wasps (Live)    5:00
CD11-9        Nocturnal Middle Rumbles (Live)    1:59
CD11-10        Mustard Hooves (Live)    3:40
CD11-11        Rats & Mice (Live)    9:23
CD11-12        City Lights (Live)    2:29
CD11-13        Like When (Live)    5:08
CD11-14        Hold Onto I.D. (Live)    5:52
CD11-15        Mouth On Mouth (Live)    3:30
CD11-16        Mouse In Mouth (Live)    4:21
CD11-17        Stella Drive (Live)    5:06
CD11-18        Coombe House (Live)    3:49
CD11-19        The Way Of The World (Live)    3:13
CD11-20        The Way Of The World II (Live)    1:21
Hold Onto Dvd    
DVD1-1        The Cat And Bells Club (1992)
DVD1-2        Live At The Siltbreeze Festival (1995)
DVD1-3        KFJC Live Broadcast, JTI Studio, London (1996)
DVD1-4        Live At The Green Room, Ypsilanti, MI (1996)
DVD1-5        Tour Rehearsal Footage (1997)
DVD1-6        Interviews (1997)
DVD1-7        Live At O'Briens Pub, Allston, MA (1997)