Lawrence seemed to revel in his role as pop’s biggest undiscovered superstar. While in the press he was unguarded about his desire for fame at almost any price, he made wayward commercial choices with his music. Take 1986’s Creation debut Let the Snakes Crinkle Their Heads To Death. Lawrence spent a small fortune on its minimalist instrumentals, only to confound the new fans who’d come onboard after 1985’s UK independent chart-topper ‘Primitive Painters’. Having just about got them back on board with organ-heavy jangle masterpiece Forever Breathes The Lonely Word, ‘The Final Resting Of The Ark’ was another leftfield turn. Artful acoustic space-folk, lit up by Richard Thomas’s echoed soprano sax, it was never going to win Radio 1 airplay beyond old supporter John Peel, or nab him the Top of the Pops exposure he felt he deserved. Featuring just Lawrence on guitar and vocals, with undulating bass from Mick Travis, ‘There’s No Such Thing As Victory’ (one of four short B-sides) is as super-hushed as a Dictaphone confession in the wee small hours. Delicate as a spider’s web, it feels as if a draught of wind would blow it to smithereens. For an artist increasingly lionised for his failure to make it big (see Corin Johnson’s marble bust or Will Hodgkinson’s Street-Level Superstar book), its words about a person unhappily immobilised by wealth (“See my life that’s how it’s meant to be”) strike a poignant chord.