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The classic Ring album, Nervous Recreation, a piece of treasure from way back there, back from when releasing your album on cassette tape was the only real option rather than the fashion statement it is now, has just been re-issued. Originally released back in 1989 (and available back in those early days as one of the very early first moves of what would become Organ’s offshoot record label ORG Records). Ring were excellent, they were a slightly rougher, slightly punkier, slighty more little brother clown infested version of Cardiacs, they came from the same Southern English suburbia as Cardiacs, they knew the little man with his whole world window but they were far far more than jsut a clone. The two bands played some excellent shows together, worked with each other, Ring would often be seen on the free festival or the squat gig scenes, brilliants adventures in all kinds of places. Actually Ring were probably somewhere in that gap between Here And Now and Cardiacs, maybe a touch of Gong and with just that little bit of magic dust, sprinkled by the twisted Crowman, that was something all of their own.

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“Originally released on cassette in 1989 “Nervous Recreation’ was recorded on a Fostex M80 1/4 inch 8 track machine. The drums, bass, guitars and keyboards were put down at Marek Woznica’s flat in Melfort Rd in Thornton Heath – additional guitars and keys were recorded at Ring Mission Control in Selsdon and the vocals were recorded at Bob’s parents house in Oakley Rd, Warlingham where the album was also mixed down onto a B77 Revox 1/4 inch 2 track machine. It’s not known how many copies were made from the master (probably 250 in total) but the album got seriously bootlegged and ended up in all sorts of places The 2 track masters were baked and transferred to digital in 2007 and then subsequently mastered by Ron Synovitz at Golden Hive Studios in Prague in 2019 with additional tweaks by James Larcombe”.

I can’t honestly tell you if either the Ring albums, there are two, their first, O De Dun Dun came out in 1986 and was probably the very first tape (of thousands) that we reviewed in the first ever edition of Organ, I can’t honestly tell if they’re any good now here in 2023, they both sound brilliant to us, but then we got to see Ring many times, they were a big part of what we were doing as Organ back there, they’ll always sound special to us. magical. I think they still sound good, yes, both the album still sound as delightfully good, almost innocently good, as they did back there… Special times from back when Organ was a handmade hand painted fanzine written on a broken typewriter (sw)

Find both Ring albums on Bandcamp

Actually, there was a Ring booklet zine thing as well…