Fast forward to 1981, and the nervous punk friction of Who's Your Friend? has fully mutated into a sleek, nocturnal beast. Emerging from London’s infamous Blitz Club scene, bandleader Jimme O'Neill absorbed the rising New Wave Funk movement and channeled it into the standalone Shadowed 12-inch single (Catalog No: VS 420-12). Released via Virgin Records, this crucial 12" pressing anchors their brilliant, pulp-noir Beat Noir era, stretching out their changing sound on a spacious 45 RPM canvas built explicitly for the dancefloor.
The title track is a masterclass in atmospheric dance-rock, trading the band's older, jagged guitar spikes for a pristine, driving pulse. Underpinned by a tight "morse code" rhythm guitar groove, "Shadowed" thrives on sheer club-driven kinetic energy, letting the bassline carve out massive paths while O'Neill’s vocals wrap the song in a tense, cinematic paranoia. It’s slick, high-gloss pop that refuses to lose its subversive, underground edge.
But it’s the sprawling B-side medley, "Madame X / Tickled To Death", that makes this specific 12-inch pressing an absolute necessity for collectors. Clocking in at a heavy 7 minutes and 41 seconds, the band stretches their art-funk experimentalism to its breaking point. This dark, pulsating epic was actually excised from later versions of the Beat Noir LP, leaving this exact vinyl groove as the definitive, unedited document of Fingerprintz pushing their bass-heavy, rhythm-first philosophy into the shadows of the early-80s nightlife.
Ripped to MP3
A: Shadowed (Extended Version) (3:23)
B: Madame X / Tickled To Death (7:41)
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