Released in 1988 on vinyl only, Shadow Factory is the first compilation on the British indiepop label, Sarah Records. Catalog number 587 (Sarah cataloged all their comps after different bus lines in Bristol, as an interesting tangent).
Tracks on Sarah587 are from SARAHs 1-12
- ANOTHER SUNNY DAY "I'm In Love With A Girl Who Doesn't Know I Exist"
- THE SEA URCHINS "Please Rain Fall"
- 14 ICED BEARS "Sure To See"
- THE ORCHIDS "Underneath The Window, Underneath The Sink"
- THE SEA URCHINS "Sullen Eyes"
- THE POPPYHEADS "Dreamabout"
- THE ORCHIDS "Give Me Some Peppermint Freedom"
- THE SPRINGFIELDS "Are We Gonna Be Alright?"
- THE SEA URCHINS "Pristine Christine"
- THE ORCHIDS "Tiny Words"
- THE FIELD MICE "Fabulous Friend"
- 14 ICED BEARS "Come Get Me"
- THE SPRINGFIELDS "Sunflower"
- THE ORCHIDS "Apologies"
- THE FIELD MICE "The Last Letter"
- THE GOLDEN DAWN "My Secret World"
In terms of explicating the spirit and politics of indiepop the liner notes from this record are as good as it gets:
… it’s just POLITICS, not as some distant unreal end, but as something encaptured in everyday life… no ripped dungaree late-night beer talking or self-inflicted suffering made holy, and used, no sanctimonious ‘socialist’ pose hawked popstarry-eyed with a thatcherist gleam when it comes to THE SELL, but something that’s basic and pure, just a surge of excitement and love and RESPONSIBILITY…
popmusic as a spontaneous, lovable thing, created and bought in a onrush of NEED without needing to SAVE UP for weeks or meekly accept sad drab stigmatising 99p-only tack.
so it’s idealism, so what, it’s a good place to start. Standing up alone (much harder), DOING, just what feels right… Something to do with – oh, let’s just say changing the world.
so when one dismal morning a new song turns up at our door, full of wrong notes and wrong chords but crammed with right Everything Elses, and my typical daydreamy swirl has their name at once scuffed out with reverence on each rain-splattered sandcastled beach from Chepstow to Bridgwater Bay, so at the back of my mind will lurk gorgeous machine-gun panoramas, trembling alive with incipient HOPE and I’ll laugh and I’ll run and I’ll want to DESTROY and CREATE who knows what, I’ll just want want want NEED and that’s all that matters for now…
this LP, 16 songs, all from Sarah 7"s, no unreleased out-takes or bonus mix cons, just an HONEST old-fashioned something we’re proud of, a statement of faith in all sorts of futures tomorrow…
Dedication:
Thanks to all our chums in the independent record industry, without whom none of this would have been necessary.