For Sharon Shy of R. Missing, the moment something is complete, it’s already in the rearview mirror. “I should sign up for a fanclub for tomorrow,” she once remarked, a line that feels less like a throwaway quip and more like a manifesto. It’s a declaration of her commitment to the next idea, to the next emotion waiting to be captured. For Shy, art isn’t meant to be held onto or overanalyzed; it’s meant to exist—and to be experienced fully—in the moment.
This seems to be woven into every aspect of R. Missing’s work. Their songs, often under three minutes long, are like snapshots of a moment—haunting, hypnotic, and gone before you can fully grasp them. Interviews are gloriously concise, and Shy resists the urge to over-explain or romanticize. And their release strategy, which favors real-time singles over the traditional album cycle, feels like a deliberate rejection of nostalgia. Piecing together interviews from a few different sources I learned a lot about how Sharon Shy approaches both music and conversation.
Last week they shared their latest single “Dear Contests” (above), their latest cryptic and irresistible darkwave banger, featuring enigmatic lyrics and a sinister vibe. “Dear Contests” follows “Telepolartears”, a downtempo disco-style track that I have played to death since its release at the end of January.
The NY-based duo (Shy and Henry ‘Toppy’ Frost) has released three essential, downtempo EDM singles so far in 2025. Each one sounds like a meticulous construction – melancholy and hypnotic, with often cryptic lyrics. Before the two songs above was “Fakesnow” with Johan Agebjörn from January:
R. Missing has been releasing music at an accelerating rate since 2017. Last year they collected most of their 2024 singles into an 11-track release called Knife Shook Your Hand, which feels like a fully conceived album rather than a collection of one-offs. It surprised me at first, but having learned more about their process and approach, it’s perfectly aligned with their forward-looking, deliberate and meticulous nature.
Prior to R. Missing, that they led a band called The Ropes through a couple of configurations. The point is they’ve been very good at this for quite a while. Here’s “Hey Contemporary” is from 2008, a new favourite:
I rarely read interviews with artists I admire. Too often, they feel overly rehearsed or sanitized, stripping away the mystery that makes the art so compelling. Worse, they can over-explain the work, offering context that dulls its magic rather than enhancing it.
That said, Sharon Shy is a fascinating interview subject. Introverts tend to speak directly and succinctly, and that can come off like coldness1, and everything about her work suggests she’s as big an introvert as you’ll find. She’s given interviews to several online outlets, and her determined concision makes for fascinating reading. This Q&A with Electricity Club is high art: Shy answers every question with surgical precision, without a wasted syllable.
Q: ‘All Alone With Seas’ was a fine track but ultimately didn’t end up on the album, so how did you go about selecting which songs would form ‘Knife Shook Your Hand’?
A: ‘Knife Shook Your Hand’ is a collection of songs released in 2024. ‘All Alone With Seas’ came out the year prior.
…
Q: Do you have any favourite songs on the album and if so, why those particular ones?
A: No. The truth is I never really think about anything once it’s alive.
It can be hilariously confounding to an interviewer who is used to letting a subject ramble. This piece in Prémonition actually advises readers to skip the interview because she was a challenging subject. Nonsense. Shy delivers thoughtful gems throughout including the ‘fanclub for tomorrow’ quote from the lede. It’s one of the best things I’ve read this year. It’s hard not to quote the whole thing, you should definitely go read it:
Q:…your answers are often quite short. I’m noticing it today with my questions. Are my questions not of interest to you? Or is it that the automatic writing principle drives your answers and sometimes it’s difficult to trigger a response when reading journalists’ questions 😉 ?! Or is it simply a desire to remain mysterious?
A: Simply shyness and avoidance of dreary blocks of text. I liked all the questions and found them valuable and interesting but prefer to stay concise. Perhaps more accurately, I can be no other way but concise.
Q: Do you think this “reserved” approach could be counterproductive?
A: No.
David Lynch famously hated discussing his work. “When you finish anything, people want to talk about it. And I think it’s almost like a crime. A film or a painting – each thing is its own sort of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing in words.”
I think Sharon Shy likely agrees with that.
Further reading
Interview from 2010 about The Ropes
The Ropes 1.0 on Bandcamp
The Ropes 2.0 on Bandcamp
