ROBERT RIDLEY-SHACKLETON
"Shut Up Egg" (self released)

Shut Up Egg Cover Art
We meet again Robert Ridley-Shackleton. This guy is some sort of British maniac who makes some pretty wacky music. Here is the "blurb" that came with the one-sheet for this tape:

Hi everybody my name is Robby as you know already. In this album I got into my demi-dog state where I am touching god and then I noticed that an egg was beating my wife in the kitchen. So I smashed him and saw his yoke splat all over the floor. Much later, after an incident with a naughty dog. The dog told me that the egg I beat up was actually Humpty Dumpty. I realised I had made a big mistake as I worship Humpty. I then saw a vision of him falling off a wall. When my mum finally came home from her job she saw the mess in the kitchen and as a punishment I have to eat eggs for the next 8 years.


Well there you have it. Words to live by. Robby's plays simple repetitive carnivalesque casio lines (sometimes over primitive drum machine rhythms) on top of which he "sings" his lyrics in a mildly frightening manner. Comparisons could be drawn to Wild Man Fischer, et al. One of the best things about his recordings are the way in which lo-fi recording quality makes them sound like missives from an insane asylum. That seems to be the modus operandi for just about every release I've heard from him, but hey, it works for me. I mean, you can laugh at this stuff and just say "this guy is taking a piss," but he's so committed to such a specific brand of audio insanity that you've got to give the guy credit. Shut Up Egg is actually my favorite thing I've heard from him so far. What makes this one stand out for me is the really beautiful keyboard instrumental that follows the brief song bit on the A side, the grimy riff that closes out the B side and the unified subject matter (eggs).

Robert's music webpage has tons to listen to.
This tape is distributed by Eggy in the USA.