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Shifts

by The Display Team

supported by
Paul Phillips
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Paul Phillips Great energetic album with tons of brass. Looking forward to your performance at the Thumpermonkey gig in Manchester. This cd is a must if you like the Wizards of Twiddly and Cardiacs music. Favorite track: The Crux Of The Brux.
impressivelad
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impressivelad This has become one of my favourite albums ever. Sorely underrated band, there's never a dull moment on this album, let alone across their entire discography. Simply superb. Favorite track: Epitaph.
Jack Benson
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Jack Benson It’s just so good.
The damned pond is full of life. Favorite track: This Is The News.
Jacampanman
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Jacampanman Playful, energetic and complex music of the highest order, guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Fans of The Cardiacs will love this.
Poesy Rider
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Poesy Rider En fait, je ne pensais pas que TDT pourrait faire aussi bien que l'extraordinaire album Drones, mais à l'écoute de ce Shifts, je me suis rendu compte que j'étais dans l'erreur...Du coup je me dis que, tout simplement, un super groupe est un groupe qui fait de super albums. CQFD.
Louis Jagger
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Louis Jagger South East London represent! Energy, confidence, chutzpah, Cardiacs, irrepressibility. And brass, lots of brass. Favorite track: Epitaph.
more...
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    The CD edition of 'Shifts', the second full-length album by The Display Team.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Shifts via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days

      £10 GBP or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £5 GBP  or more

     

1.
[PLEASE NOTE THAT BANDCAMP DOES NOT PRESERVE ALL TEXT FORMATTING. These lyrics look better in the CD sleeve.] Woe betide those lacking a flag to bear as leagues of zombies trundle on without care. Lady bejewelled, we’re ruled and accept meagre gruel, you take the lion’s share. Suffering ignoble turns of fate, reprobate populace, enamoured by a savoured romance…red, white and blue trance… This sits ill with me, for what is your creed but a dynastic blind hegemony? Decadence is rife among your ilk, quilted silk reputations falling gently on regal hide that no-one dare chide. Does an ancient institution that’s founded on the principle of power warrant any credence amongst the burghers dwelling far beneath their tower? Strife, as we clamber for life, disparities rife… ‘Mon’ is the prefix, but you're not the one for me; ‘arc’ is the suffix to your dreary narrative. Vile plutocracy! Glib orthodoxy! DEATH TO DYNASTY! Preach austerity from atop your steed, but your garden’s plush and we have but weeds! A phalanx of planks flanks the Thames; the festooned buffoons applaud the hoarded gems while the boastful hosts wave their gilded hems, marking the starkest of ‘usses’ and ‘thems’… This anachronistic embarrassment shouldn’t be enthroned but be overthrown; otherwise there’s nothing to celebrate.
2.
Mercy Nurse 04:10
[PLEASE NOTE THAT BANDCAMP DOES NOT PRESERVE ALL TEXT FORMATTING. These lyrics look better in the CD sleeve.] Mercy... Give it to me now. Nurse me...back to health somehow. You’ve got my number. You text my weakness, pretend you’re sweetness, but it turns out you’re sour! I must admit it was me too and I'm a sucker for that game that you play with me, when you're hard to get. The game that when I want you, you ignore my calls for attention then the tension builds and someone always folds. I don't know if you’re keeping count, but we only score own goals. If I want, if I want to drop your mystery, all I need to know’s your history to reveal you’re plain. No more puzzles No more wondering why I cannot read your actions. You’ll seem quite inane. If you want, if you want to drop my mystery, all you need to know’s my history to reveal I’m plain... No more puzzles No more wondering why you cannot read my actions. I’ll seem quite inane.
3.
[PLEASE NOTE THAT BANDCAMP DOES NOT PRESERVE ALL TEXT FORMATTING. These lyrics look better in the CD sleeve.] Each syllable is unpardonable, just a laughable unwitting parody fittingly packed with naivety - hailstones and razorblades into my ears. Caution! Not enough to apportion, never doubting the wisdom, openly spouting hot air - words from the derrière cut through the debonair. Anile conjecture betrays your true nature. Tectonic shifts to your corpus of lies, compromising the ties that were tied as a child to belie widened eyes… …effortlessly wrecking identity. Goaded ’til all myths were exploded; self-eroded the fascia - melted glacier reveals that pointiest of heels: the lying schmuck. Now hear how greedy piggy squeals when he gets stuck! Bleed, piggy! Bleed! Now you know how it feels! Cough your guts up in your trough! I hope you suffocate on your muck! Steadily starved - now I’m ready to carve you up! Though I long to have you out of the picture, you just keep creeping back in the frame. Curse this company I’m keeping! And it’s no sweeping claim to heap all blame on you. Goals under veils - yes, the boat is afloat, but you’ve rolled up the sails. False decrees - larder door is secure, but you’ve stolen the keys. Looming large - bayonet strike is set, but you hold up the charge. No disguise anymore covers your swollen corpus of lies…corpus of lies…corpus of lies…corpus of lies.
4.
[PLEASE NOTE THAT BANDCAMP DOES NOT PRESERVE ALL TEXT FORMATTING. These lyrics look better in the CD sleeve.] This or that, or maybe something else... Option A, B, C, decide. Fence-sitters like me get splintered pride or hide. Many possibilities bounce endlessly round my crown, but from a fence I normally fall down. Black and white that doesn’t quite help. um...they’re like vertical bars. or...perhaps endless horizons stretched infinitely far. Grey paves the way in my bonce baby (it is grey matter after all) and it’s the grey that matters to me. I err on ‘er’ and that tends to lead to a fall. From the fence. Stunted by these vacillations, options overwhelm. Lapses in synapses trap this ditherer within a withering realm and that perhaps is why... My splintered hide resides atop fence, bloodied and chafed from the sliding across. I just stare down at the hair tops below. I’ve mined my mind but my mind’s come up at a loss. On the fence. Prod the problem through a prism to separate into parts. Then you can tackle one beam at a time and start living. I summoned the cream of science (Can we help you?) To make a device or appliance. (With some voodoo?) To channel the chore of choosing (Escape the bind!) Which makes it all less confusing, to our muddled minds. Prod the problem through a prism to separate into parts. Then you can tackle, then you can battle, you can dismantle, and start to shackle one... One beam at a time (one beam at a time). One beam at a time (one thing at a time). Prod the problem through a prism (repeat) Jump off the fence (repeat) Jump off it... Separate it into parts.
5.
Epitaph 06:41
[PLEASE NOTE THAT BANDCAMP DOES NOT PRESERVE ALL TEXT FORMATTING. These lyrics look better in the CD sleeve.] Everybody else is going somewhere; I, however, have nowhere to go. If you were to ask me what my plan is: “I don’t know!”. I don’t know. Those who won't employ me must be laughing when they read the answers I provide; it’s my epitaph I'm autographing: “I don't know”. Where’s my guidebook? Don’t quote me your scriptures, they’re just pretty pictures which offer me no comfort; they may work for some, but not me down in this ditch. Caught between the cutting and the thrusting, reasoning that neither holds appeal, I admit I struggle with adjusting to a world far from ideal… I can offer zero in a number-cruncher’s view; am I doomed to follow lifelong timecard-punchers who also did not know? Shiftless drifters graft and grift for food. Aimless parents spawn a gormless brood: Hopeless heaps of sleepless worker bees, ‘feckless’ families’ facsimiles. Shiftless drifters graft and grift for food. Aimless parents spawn a gormless brood: Hopeless heaps of sleepless worker bees, ‘feckless’ families’ facsimiles. Shiftless drifters graft and grift for food. Aimless parents spawn the gormless. On and up rich go, cups overflowing, Strong and tall, secure and always knowing breeding means an easy life awaits them, cushioned by an underclass that hates them... Mother popped me out without a blueprint, father never handed me a script, neither had a clue of what to do, hint or idea; they were tight-lipped about the truth: I’d reach the end of youth no wiser as an early riser, yielding the result - I’m legally adult but scraping by in apiaries... Why did they keep their line alive - to send their children to the hive? I have no wisdom to bequeath, just ugly skin and crooked teeth... Should I be pushed or simply jump, or waste away, a worthless rump? How else can I escape this dump? In a way, I pity the careerist: driven by his greed, not by his needs. I would take whichever exit's nearest; I don't know where it leads to… Capital is nothing but a concept, poverty is positively real; money is a myth and should be gone, wept for by those who cannot feel… No-one is rewarded after death but sordid worms; what one sows in Autumn can't be reaped post-mortem, so live life by these terms: if we make it nice, Earth is paradise. Those on breadlines work to shorter deadlines, too preoccupied to self-reflect. Their deaths seldom make the solemn headlines, nor command widespread respect. Perspicacious people ponder purpose; lives end in pursuit of what they mean. Parents burp us, children will usurp us; should not good happen between? Lowbrows in low situations tend to be low-hanging fruit; low status, low expectations and low self-esteem to boot. And how the high stick the boot in! High-handed, high-hatting hordes, high-minded and highfalutin, on high, claim the high rewards.
6.
I Am House 04:17
[PLEASE NOTE THAT BANDCAMP DOES NOT PRESERVE ALL TEXT FORMATTING. These lyrics look better in the CD sleeve.] I am house, I am house, I am house. I am house. My plan began, pen in my hand, cascading the ink down from my head, along my wrist to settle on page. Lists and diagrams began to flow to paper. The scheme soon came of age. First stage meant to imbibe cement - sank right to my feet. One thing more a trip to a DIY store. I am house, I am house, I am house, I am house. Big trolley and a shopping list. The cart assists my heavy feet. I buy up bricks (that’s a tick), and some tiles, floor boards and nails, mortar and more. I go from store with a front door- I'm ready. I force the bricks under skin, break my jaw to fit the door in, slide some wires round through my veins -I'm already sorted for drains. On my back, build chimney stack. Cracked my bones to make this home (bricks and mortal). I'm bent and bruised, but take the view, I'm glad to be on ‘property ladder’ House! I am house! I am house! I am house.
7.
[PLEASE NOTE THAT BANDCAMP DOES NOT PRESERVE ALL TEXT FORMATTING. These lyrics look better in the CD sleeve.] Danger! And exotic adventure. Weary travel dementia, unavoidable danger, an exotic adventure… Sucking on intoxicating continental atmosphere inviting you to be seduced and saturate yourself in balmy juice, reducing inhibitions. Artfully avoiding interrogation, smartly dodging offers of conversation; slipping out the back door. Meanwhile, I am scandalously teetering on a tight-rope of depravity, indecency approaching quickly; tentatively tip-toeing over topics too taboo to be excused except in secret thoughts not verbalised in range of unavoidable danger, an exotic adventure, weary travel dementia. Foul temptress! Get undressed! Scandalously teetering on a tight-rope of depravity, indecency approaching quickly; tentatively tip-toeing over topics too taboo to be excused except in secret thoughts not verbalised in…
8.
[PLEASE NOTE THAT BANDCAMP DOES NOT PRESERVE ALL TEXT FORMATTING. These lyrics look better in the CD sleeve.] Beating palms on thighs and cursing, capsized, I’m repeating words and welts, I’m nursing; sandbelts grind me... Fearing that this time’s the last time - that I’m dumbly nearing her wit’s threshold, fast; mime sorrow numbly and shun the chief cause: one brief pause… Sleep is no escape as I wake with a weary sigh, bleary-eyed and dusty-lipped, but no wiser; no insight, no incisor… No slight erosion deflects the next explosion, when, with sore jaw (and tongue), I’m strung once more, with my feet on the hangman’s trap; I’m hoping the rope not my neck will snap this time. Knock spots from this leopard! Guide this lamb, my shepherd! Tame this brute gorilla! Make this caterpillar a butterfly! Stomach knotting, gums sore and rotting, copy-book a sloppy blotting, I take actions, but no retractions might unite the biting factions. Tendered truth is rendered near-toothless when engendered by a ruthless camel, whose enamel, abused, bepowders every cowed ‘excuse me’. How does howling loud defuse me? Stomach knotting, gums sore and rotting, copy-book a sloppy blotting, I take actions, but no retractions might unite the biting factions. Tendered truth does not excuse me. Agonised apologising! Manically mythologising how I’m improving now... “Don't despair - I’m not beyond repair! Bear with me until you cannot bear me…” Beating palms on thighs, I curse. Pleading only makes it worse. Signs - I’m in many minds as I ponder what to do. I can feel my smile divide, falter and subside every time the horror-claw comes into view; I can hack and sever, but it grows back forever…
9.
[PLEASE NOTE THAT BANDCAMP DOES NOT PRESERVE ALL TEXT FORMATTING. These lyrics look better in the CD sleeve.] Precipitating clever wordplay, hypothesising our judgement day, causing ample disarray: this array can’t allay our dismay. Sift through the weak home videos, celebrity rifts, sneak previews and peep shows; no, this is not the real news, now come along and show the real news. If you choose to peruse excuses posing as news, past mandatory intonation application, only then can you pretend to understand. See the tackiest of news, tackled, freed from the weighty ‘truth-shackles’, backed up by apocalyptic tracks designed with shock in mind for purely dramatic purposes. Embarrassingly fabricated; a population ill-placated, delighting in fear-mongering. Nonplussed reporters bluff politely, a farcical façade shown nightly; it’s entertaining, but while they’re feigning a factual show, they’re maintaining the vile reigning status quo. These are the headlines! This is the news! Fact and doubt entwine - fasten your noose! This just in… No, we are not the real news; now, come along and show the news, and not the lies, the spin, lies and spin and disguised payola marketing, marketing and the slander, sleaze or sugar-coated fantasies. Delighting in fear-mongering, entertaining and maintaining ratings: this is the news. This is the news.
10.
[PLEASE NOTE THAT BANDCAMP DOES NOT PRESERVE ALL TEXT FORMATTING. These lyrics look better in the CD sleeve.] Ooh, ooh, ooh. Suddenly a formality abnormally strays. Reality just seems to change at once. Dunces, paid to lunch, laughing ominously… If only I could obviously extract a little sweet revenge without causing friends some doubt, I would heap enormous pressure, crushing greed with gleeful pleasure, bent right through. Big wide blue. Squalid and dank, but solid and with no-one to thank, a bank of stolid misfits made their nest but slept fully-dressed, lest they suddenly be banished. By the busload, crew thus vanished out of view; big wide blue. (It) opens up, big, wide and blue, and springs upon a lucky few… Ooh, ooh. Withering me, with hammers of their blacksmithery and gamma rays of mythic degree, an iron rain is dropping like tons of blazing hot anvils, pouring from the sky, no prior warning. Friendly fire, quickly dawning, hurling scorn through my torn awning. Damage done. Big wide blue. (It) opens up, big, wide and blue, and springs upon a lucky few, some glittering rainbows and pure rays of sunlight. Despite my pleading, hope’s receding: where’s this leading to? My plans upset by some pathetic petty parvenu. What was already hardly steady job security is fast effaced to be replaced by an apostrophe. Bluntly stiffed, the decisions they have made are pushing me further out, under the radar, where I’m drenched by an abhorrent torrent... I ponder, shivering in unforgiving livery: how like the motion of an ocean can a river be? Cast adrift on the current of a runnel, out at sea, tossed as ballast from a gunwale; like some inside-out umbrella focused rainfall like a funnel on my gasping face with no ‘plan B’ or ‘option two’. (It) opens up, big, wide and blue, and springs upon a lucky few, some glittering rainbows and pure rays of sunlight. Ooh, ooh, ooh.

about

Following significant time spent conceptualising it, we in The Display Team have finally made our second album 'Shifts' available for all our fans to enjoy. In this time, we have created an ideal solution to bring you all the fun of a The Display Team performance - on record! We like 'Shifts'. We hope you will too.

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released April 20, 2016

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The Display Team London, UK

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