The Shadow Ring (1992-2002) [11xCD+DVD Set]

This is for the cd/dvd box set. The book is available to purchase separately

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.

TRACK LISTING:
CD1 (South of the Island): Claw Fight / Father’s Dead / Pipe Fly / Prallo By Window / Opal / Electric Soup / Pound Coins / Oak Key /
Cat Thread / Coffee House / Salt Would / Spanish Donkey / Raven Chest / Clip Blue Ceap / Theme’ers / Paper Release / A Farewell
Rive / The Co-operative / C-Town Breeding Ground / The Golden Gate/ Dietary Complex / Cave of Ice Cats / Kent Custer / The
Garden Party
CD2 (Curtain of the Unknown Speech): Footprints in Milk / Fire Melts Faster Than Ice / The Drama of High Clack Clack / Wooden
Fishes in Their Juices / Fire Felts Master the Ice / The Seven Plagues / Moon by Moon / Evil & Good / A Flash of 8-Watt / The Warf of
Radnor / Stools of Repentance
CD3 (Gladly Turning Sun to Stars): The Iron Ark / Ark in the Rainclouds / Don’t Open the Window / The Heavy Foot of the Lark /
Computer Forms / Tiny Creatures / Double Standard / City Lights / Oooh Ahh / Cape of Seaweed / Lyin’ Eyes / Cold Coffee / Here
Come the Candles / Faithful Calls / White Eyes / The Visitor / Snowbirds of Alkatraz / All-Frock Colours
CD4 (The Mirror of Caves): Harlequin (Darkest Part of the Sky) / Squawk With Me (Version I) / Horse-Meat Cakes / Heart, Live &
Lungs / Put the Music In Its Coffin / Remembering Old Friends / Mustard Hooves / Nocturnal Middle Rumbles / Caribbean Porridge /
Crystal Tears / Spin the Animal Dial / Moonlight in Wings / Squak with Me (Version II) / Birds & Booze / KFJC (89.7 FM) Radio Spot /
Candle Meat / Media Egg
CD5 (Brought Down by Poultry): Wallet of Wasps / Some of Us / You’re Holding All Your Feathered Stock / Catching Sight/Of Passing
Things / Brush Mice / Camel or Carthorse / Recovered Meat / Rats & Mice (Prelude) / Rats & Mice / V.E.R.M.I.N. / Gloved Up /
Black-Combed Lines / The Unnatural Crime of Laying an Egg
CD6 (Where Two Points Divide): Trying to Find / Tuna in Brine / The New Plague / Apricot Rat / Like When (Early Version) / Hold
Onto I.D. (Early Version) / Watch the Water / The Way of the World / Coombe House / Wash What You Eat / Like When / Basic
Everyday Life / Hold Onto I.D. / The Way of the World II / Prawnography
CD7 (Crossing the Border): Mouth on Mouse / Mouse in Mouth / I Am the Black Piper / Interlude I / I Am Lloyd Lyson / Mindart / If
It Is a Boy/ Interlude II / X-Ray My Mind / Don’t Say No / I Am a Lighthouse / Working for the R.N.L.I / Lifesavers / A Vision /
Disrupt the Band’s Breathing / Oyster Shell / Interlude III / Knock between Doors / Black Chalk / François de Loys / She’s a Cracker /
Pig and Hog / Fish and Hog
CD8 (By the Old Army Van): Egg Mombassa / Arthuring TIna / The British Army Can Eat / The R.A.F. Like a Nibble I / Where Do
They Put It / The R.A.F. Like a Nibble II / Outro/Intro / The World Phone / Interlude IV / Put Out / C-Out / New Born / Scratches /
We’re Complex Piss / Lindus Slideshow / I Lap It Up / The Riverside / Lindus Hologram / The Liquid Boys / Mind Blocks Crack
CD9 (Singing or Saying): Alcove Hair & Hand / When Entrance Celebrates Champagne / Kako Dresso / Ro / Man on the Land / Man /
Start Repeating / Drainage / & In / I’m Some Songs / Veehay / The Flowing / Shallows / People /Their Minds / And What If
CD10 (Just as We Were Leaving): What’s To / The Body’s Unbruised / Hold It There / The Brace/ Important Jobs/ Musical Intermission
I / Musical Intermission II / Dear / Take Great Strength
CD11 (Live): Intro / Starbird / Improvisation / Harlequin (Darkest Park of the Sky) / Tiny Creatures / Spin the Animal Dial / Put the
Music In Its Coffin / Wallet of Wasps / Nocturnal Middle Rumbles / Mustard Hooves / Rats & Mice / City Lights / Like When / Hold
Onto I.D. / Mouth on Mouse / Mouse in Mouth / Stella Drive / Coombe House / The Way of the World / The Way of the World II
DVD1 (Hold Onto DVD): Intro / Praquo / Kent Custer / The Garden Party / Starbird / The Beetle Took Shelter Under The Leaf / End
/ Lawnmower Engine Hotrod / Afterhours Jam / Pre show chat / Tiny Creatures / City Lights / Nocturnal Middle Rumbles / Dedicated
to Vince Rice / Rats & Mice / Wallet of Wasps / Put The Music in It's Coffin / Hold Onto I.D. / Mouth on Mouse / Mouse in Mouth /
Cape of Seaweed / Stella Drive / Interviews / Intro / Like When / Coombe House / The Way of The World Pts I/II