I’ve always enjoyed what I consider—no doubt pretentiously—to be rather unusual musics. There, I’ve said it.
At school, I came across a group of strange individuals performing under the name Ring. There’s very little about them on the great interweb, perhaps reflecting how individual and obscure their music was at the time. They had an early demo tape (untitled) which was released in 1984 on the anarcho-punk label BBP Records and Tapes (a sticker on the cassette proudly proclaims their motto “DIY not EMI is our game”). Ring’s first “real” (ahem) album, again on tape, was O De Dun Dun, self-released in 1989. Both were wonderful. There is, apparently, a Levitation connection in their guitarist Bic (Christian Hayes) who went on to form that group with others. I’ve never heard them.
And then there was this tape—Nervous Recreation—their third and last outing, which was just extraordinary in so many ways I find hard to express now.
I dug it out tonight, from amidst a huge unlit pyre of magnetic media, just to see if it was as magical as I’d remembered, despite nearly two decades of unreliable nostalgic mist. Its cover is still as odd to me now as it was then. The music is complex, playful and accomplished, and as the site above notes, in thrall to the genius of Tim Smith and Cardiacs. That, in my book, is A Good Thing. It’s incredible to think, in fact, that this material was recorded on a four track cassette recorder.
And, remarkably, listening to it for the first time in probably 15 years or more took me back again to happy (if frustrating) times in 1989, sitting in the refectory at school, trying to explain the last track on the album, “Some Fish Have Teeth”, to anyone within earshot, even those who thought Iron Maiden were the pinnacle of invention in music and hairdressing.
But especially I tried to explain this music to Judith, to whom I was in thrall. I failed to explain it, probably, but at least I tried. Not that she ever knew I was in thrall. I think. It just seemed to me, at that point in time, that there was never more of a beautiful truism than “some fish have teeth” to the point where it became something of a mantra. That all seems a bit silly now.
And Judith, if by some quirk of fate you’re out there and reading this, do get in touch. I think I know what the song means now.
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Alistair Crosbie
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Kyle W
