SHADOW RING - Wax-Work Echoes LP

"Amusingly, The Shadow Ring’s third album was originally intended to be a collection of outtakes and live recordings for Bruce Russell’s new Corpus Hermeticum label, but a crucial recording from the band’s US tour was accidentally left in a bar. That setback was ambitiously overcome by recording an entire album of new material instead and it was notably the first to feature Tim Goss as a full-time member. Notably, Goss had been making sample-based music with a computer, so his inclusion coincided with the arrival of some better gear. Consequently, this album significantly departs from its more primitive predecessors with improved sound quality, a strong emphasis on electronics, and the involvement of the Goss family piano.

That said, Graham Lambkin’s discordantly out-of-tune guitar strums remain a central feature at this stage and Goss occasionally proves himself to be similarly adept at unleashing his own eruptions of annoying dissonance. At other times, however, the trio unexpectedly conjure something best described as outsider musique concrète along with surprisingly effective squalls of noise and feedback. Unsurprisingly, Darren Harris’s vocals remain delightfully unsettling, compelling, and enigmatic as ever, but this album is unexpectedly more significant for its flashes of brilliance with the music itself, which is not something I often say about The Shadow Ring." - Psychotropic Wonderland