VOTD 04/13/2025

 The Residents: Leftovers Again?! Again!?! (Again) (New Ralph Too)

Purchased new at The Attic

Back for one more feeding, I suppose. I can't complain about what's left of The Residents for picking through their archives and releasing more demos and unused material. I seem to shell out for at least some of it. I can't say any of has exactly blown me away, though there have been a few nice surprises. While rough and incomplete, a pre-version of Not Available was included in the pREServed 2CD edition that was worth a listen.

This series is various odds and ends that were supposedly rediscovered. I mean, with all thing Residents, we have only their word about these things. But it makes sense: Homer Flynn has just turned 80 this past week, and my guess is he's cleaning house. And I don't question that for a long time it was a struggle, so he deserves to earn from that.

This edition, the third in a supposed trilogy, mines material from the mid to late1980s. I've probably previously gone on about this, but it's the time when I start to lose interest in their music. I missed the awful saxophone playing, the out of tune piano, and unusual atmospheres and production. Replaced was a reliance on new sampling technology. That's not necessarily bad in itself. Their EP Intermission, the first to make extensive use of the E-mu Emulator,  makes some of the most interesting use of sampling on their records in my opinion. One can even hear the improvement in the quality of the technology over the course of this LP. That is to say, unless you like the sound of early samplers because they do sound old and cheap, or at lest antiquated. 

In particular, this LP opens with four track by The Big Bubble, The Residents' fictitious band from their Mole Trilogy narrative. It's demos of Homer and Hardy, sounding like works in development for the 13th Anniversary Tour, sans Snakefinger.

Odder is "Jazz Album Experiment", which of course sounds not a bit like jazz in the least. And I'm fine with fake jazz, that's what John Lurie called Lounge Lizards (even though it wasn't necessarily accurate). Their American Composers series, having reworked Gershwin, Sousa, Hank Williams and James Brown, supposedly was going to move on to Sun Ra next. Maybe it could have been great, who can say?

Well, leftovers aren't so bad really.