An Unsolicited Opinion
Imposing Mystics
by Jonas Golland
cupempty@gmail.com
The 'Same Old' Residents, as they brand themselves on the
inner cover of their latest enigmatic album, Animal Lover,
come at us with new and old atmospheres. This brand may be
necessary for them as they are known for recreating
themselves. But more than ever, Animal Lover uses the
strengths of their most recent albums such as Wormwood,
Icky Flix, 12 Days of Brumalia, and continues a placid
style developed in the 2002 album Demons Dance Alone. Over
their 30 years The Residents, more a mystic movement than
what we call a band, have taken advantage of dormant powers
in music provoking character, but done far more than infuse
differing styles and genres with theatrics and visual art.
Their albums, videos, multimedia, soundtracks, singles and
endless miscellany are of a fast-changing nature that
comforts eccentricity in an all-inclusive manner. It’s
plausible that their arts attempt to be in between all
others because their axis of their albums, which admittedly
are the bulk of their work, is usually concept, journey or
story. Though admittedly and exaggeratedly zany, probably
no other band works this hard at taking so many forms.
That’s why they can’t compare with those that are strict of
style, for they have a different role, with spades to show
for it. They are a force less about having a backlog of
secular successful works and more about variety in
experience and broadness of range in creations.
This is clearly illustrated in their countless remaking of
their own music including Icky Flix (2000), a collective of
selected works over 30 years. Diskomo 2000 is some sort of
version of widely recognized Eskimo (1979), which is rather
some kind of parallel universe to Eskimo rather than a
remix. They have remixed their very first demo album into
something else altogether. Their latest release, The Way We
Were is of a concert in Australia where they remade more
old favorites never before remade. They have a wide variety
of strangely conclusive offerings worth exploring, a band
that is worth many second chances. But out of all this
randomness, which was no doubt all fun to produce, Animal
Lover (2005) is more a sum of it all than any other, even
than Icky Flix (2000). Their style was a jump from 1998’s
Wormwood, though slightly familiar, and showed a renewed
effort to produce wholesome albums. The dominant summoning
aspect of their creativity is not limited by the audiences
need for familiarity or consistency, and even in the less
serious designs or even vignettes, there is a distinct mark
of craftiness only attached to its inception.
Animal Lover is no Commercial Album for it is more involved
in long-term feelings like the new songs My Window, The
Whispering Boys, Mother No More, Burn My Bones. It is no
Duck Stab/Buster & Glen for it's more matured and less
playful. They come dark and deceptively personal, well
aware, as they are, of impersonal meaning. Compared not
only with their impacting works it is fresh and terribly
grasping if allowed. Compared with Demons Dance Alone,
perhaps their poppiest and saddest album thus far, it goes
melancholic again with more nourishing music and less
repressed pain. Animal Lovers’ instrumentation and
production are just more human than Demons Dance Alone.
Compare the range of instruments, the organic sounds kin to
the notes playing melodies whose parts intertwine in less
strict patterns. From Hunter Felt of Popmatters: “On Animal
Lover, The Residents show, as always, a lot of heart and
thought in the lyrics and ideas and even in their
theatrical vocal performances, but that effort only
sporadically shows up in the music itself.”
Something must be said for the music of Animal Lover here.
More open audiences need only listen to the many sides of
the albums musicality. It takes great musical steps for The
Residents but certainly more than meets their ‘heart and
thought in the lyrics and ideas.’ Compositionally, these
songs reveal something of the theme within them, and where
they don’t, they present mystery. In the preliminary notes
it was said that the “…rhythm tracks are based entirely on
animal noise mating patterns generated primarily by cicadas
and frogs." I don’t doubt that rhythms in this album were
actually taken from cicadas and frogs. These are densely
layered recordings; it takes a few listens to spot
technicalities amidst all the gimmicks and images. Those of
us that make music know what is possible these days, and
how quickly samples can be manipulated and varied, and one
has a staggering choice of devices to use. And those of us
that have really listened to the intricacies of The
Residents' progression musically know that they are not
only open to a huge range of sounds but have developed
their own systems of selecting them. They have been doing
this for over 30 years. This should encourage listening
because Animal Lovers’ production is more specific than any
of their work so far.
The premise for the album is stated to be “…a soundtrack
that relate[s] directly to ‘animal love.’” The Residents
have a history of being either ambiguous or vague with
explanations without even showing whether it is intentional
or not. On a more general note it seems that everything The
Residents do is a joke, but at the same time it is a
sincere philosophy. A balance is being sought, and it is
rare for a ‘band’ to be so involved and open to the
contradictions/mysteries of what they do. It would seem
plausible that in their disguises, their lack of
conventional titles and interviews, their gifts of totally
unreasonable mockery of all they please, that they are
asking us to trust them with this information about their
release. They have before displayed some facility for quite
organized thought like their philosophy for Commercial
Album, a formula for writing pop songs, 40 of them, each
one minute long. It is satire done constructively and
freely representing so many concepts within the album, one
minute at a time. The liner notes state a very plausible
formula for pop songs.
The Theory at Blogcritics.org wrote a review that was very
enlightening, but said one thing that needs to be commented
on. The Animal Lover song Mr Bee’s Bumble is the first and
most rhythmic song. It is not impossible to get a feeling
for it progressing the album. The Theory said: “…it could
have been whipped up during the dance remixing of the WB
demos.” I was surprised at this in the carefully written
review. They were right that it “signals a change in
direction,” as it certainly shakes up the album as the most
fast-paced and the most danceable. It is strange how it
ends, though, on the decisive root note. The harder song to
me so far is working wonderfully on the album, yet that
note at the end doesn’t allow the song to fit into the
softer, longer mysteries of Animal Lover.
Compare Demons Dance Alones’ title track with Animal
Lovers' central dirge, ‘My Window’ and you hear another
countless example of the bands' art of specifying their
albums’ character. Though these songs share a lot of the
same blue qualities, they reflect this. Listen and see what
you think, for it is not easy to keep up with this most
eccentric band of closeted intuition, journeys beyond
taboos, analysis of how we see, or just childish
dressing-up and stripping gone mad.
Animal Lover may be a bit more considerate to conventional
ears than others. The production uses a depth and range of
orchestral, vocal, electronic, clean, organic, and
traditional instruments set to a tired or gloomy
disposition, and with far more controlled discordance than
fans are used to. From the process of 'On the Way to
Oklahoma' to the well-timed calming instrumental ‘Dreaming
of an Anthill (teeming)’, there is a mood that sustains it,
though challenging. There seems no end to the
instrumentation they have constructed up to now, and
perhaps with more layers than ever. Experimentation was
more deliberate in most of their work, whereas now they
advance composition and use chaos with more timing,
creating, much more strictly, pieces of music utilizing
noise and sound rather than the reverse or near to it. For
those that know the latter works, more clean musical
composition is not new. Animal Lover compared with Wormwood
compositionally is more undressed and personal, using more
comfortable key changes, rhythms that are easier to take
for their lack of need to shift and surprise. But when you
really compare these two spectacular albums, it all boils
down to theme and direction. Wormwood has the hollow fear
of God through and through. It touches the atmosphere of
modern church and the ancient confusion of man’s worship
and devices. Animal Lover comes of a different need
altogether, and is more broad than Wormwood, covering
rawness with a deeper resonance of weathered musical parts,
and generally leaning towards the soothing. One suspects
the band is starting to put therapy into their music rather
than strictly theme.
The Residents are closer to attracting recognition from a
wider audience, but still far from right-field. Their
themes and lyrics point to unresolved psychosis and
differing natures of corruption with humor, though not all
certain as ever, but are by far not as self-satisfied
(though one still tends to get transported into their world
without a map). Their push toward mass appeal seems to be
trying to alter mass appeal itself throughout their
history. And though this album is no exception, it does
seem to utter some mass appeal qualities like the broad
theme of animal nature in humans. Without the preliminary
notes about the philosophy of "Food goes in one end and
sh*t comes out the other. Sperm goes in and babies come
out. It's all we've got, that and love," they have created
a rather imposing album, including the attractive cover,
between rock and samba and horror-show score. But there is
an indescribable quality.
Inner conflict seems to be a theme. The Animal Lover bonus
CD has no title except for two passages in opposite colors.
One gives an account of an experience which can’t be taken
as much more than a joke due to its incoherence. The other
passage explains that experience more practically,
emphasizing time running out and the importance of
remembering what had happened before the memories were
‘absorbed by my Imaginary Jack.’ That CD reinterprets the
original Animal Lover songs with intensified imagination in
what is at some times like a river-ride through sensory
overloads. It seems carefully constructed, considering
their style of quick and impulsive compositions and
arrangements, and veers from their new cohesiveness. By the
end, if the listener is still at attention, they may sense
disturbance and sickness. It is the escape from Animal
Lover songs taken to extremes and overdone on purpose [For
a schizophrenic it could have twisted effects, even for
Residents music].
By its urgency one is reminded of the 2003-4 album 12 Days
of Brumalia that sneaked at us effortlessly with its
disguised and hot electric energy (with the use of
royalty-free samples), as if aimed at to the night-life of
very affluent politicians. These mostly instrumental tracks
are very un-self-conscious, urgent and drive with American
or consumer traditions; themes of Thanksgiving
‘turkey-day’, the tune of ‘Partridge in a Pear Tree’,
greed, pity, and an exaggerated revamp of Jello Jack the
Boneless Boy. The track Day 12 musically dramatizes a
heated political rally with such fullness, using car horns,
crowd rages and tinkling cocktails, that plays a scene of
ceremonious distraction in the face of crisis brilliantly
and manipulatively. Many of the sampling, hot tones and
honestly straight guitars are used similarly in Animal
Lover. 12 Days probably stands alone a sharper work than
the bonus ‘Imaginary Jack’ CD, but like all their work,
they have given each a special gift that cannot compare
with the rest in at least one way. But while Animal Lover
is more accessible, longer, and more whole than 12 Days, it
is yet another take, partly, on popular music. 12 Days is
more of a semi-dance album. You wonder how or how much
farther into pop they will go. You wonder what they won’t
do. Listening to them progress through Wormwood, Icky Flix,
Demons Dance Alone, 12 Days of Brumalia and Animal Lover,
these are serious works of reckoning with the masses (who
are mostly not listening), a struggle which could be taking
away their faces in the music market.
Animal Lover the album is a more connective, more collected
part of The Residents’ journey than others, and though you
wonder whether you’ll learn something more from it in 3
years’ time, it has some sincerely well written songs like
‘Burn My Bones’ ‘Monkey Man’ ‘Dead Men’, or ‘Elmer’s Song’.
Upon first hearing Elmer’s Song I was stunned into thinking
it was the first religious or sincere thing they had put
out. The lyric ‘God is waiting for you’ was believable and
curious at first. But then it falls into mockery with
Elmer’s opinion of ‘White people should remain in bed.’
Elusive again, and more conniving than ever I’ve heard them
before, it is so beautifully played, a tempo of baptism in
a river, that steel guitar rocking you to sleep,
hypnotizing, clean and chiming, and against a huge regal
chorus that calls you from the inside. That’s a first. I
don’t know who engineered the album but that guitar has
more qualities than it seems it could. I think it’s one
aspect of the well-crafted balance of the album, an example
of the conducive production which has improved almost every
release.
In this album The Residents have been patient: they have
stayed familiar (with the flexibility that will always
allow them), and kept sight of so many more varieties of
mood, color (though often melancholic), arranged plainly
beautiful parts for classical instruments, and done some
self analysis as well. The theme of creating ones’ own
world occurs. ‘On the Way to Oklahoma’ is about becoming
your own fantasy, told by a man-turned-cat. Whether the
rest of the album continues this idea, aside from the bonus
CD, begs more investigation. They typically aim at the
nature of things, so a song like ‘Olive and Grey’,
referring to the hue of a stolen penis, is probably based
on someone’s personal views. There is for each song a story
of an animals’ (except the Monkey Man) account of the songs
event. These give enlightening ideas and play on words at
times in pleasing ways. But whether they offer themselves
towards an overall theme of the album I have yet to
understand.
It is good to have a different point of view for each song,
especially when they are character driven. The Monkey Man’s
story and song is about societies’ restrictions on
communication, clearly, but with plenty of room for the
mysteries of The Monkey Man, who just stares at people, to
be re-evaluated. The song itself must be noted for its
extremely good timing of murky, chiming and summoning fear.
The use of the dog bark is especially evocative at the last
change. It’s really a shocking song.
Two Lips is a wonderful materialistic rampage in the mind
of the consumer. The parallel story is of the ant, who
cannot learn to understand why the man, who has mounds of
possessions, sells everything he has to buys tulips which
are so impractical. It’s cleverly ironic how greed of image
drives the man to sell his life to tulips, because losing
everything for beauty is not the answer either. It is based
on the tulip craze of Holland.
The bridge The Residents are building from the deep inner
world to the brave expense of the outer could be called
brave, or laborious. If only they would be clearer and
simpler with their ideas. They are so very indulgent with
expressing the urgent that their message may be lost. Not
enough have heard of ‘America’s most eccentric band’, or
‘The world’s most famous unknown band.’ Listeners have to
volunteer to be taken in to their world. And after going
the stretch, it unfortunately doesn’t resemble reality too
often. Of course that’s a good thing, but not always
accessible. It is my hypothesis, therefore, that the whole
business of memories being absorbed by this Imaginary Jack
is a cry for help or a warning against the powers of
imagination (from utmost, overt trip-heads). Just listen to
them spin out of control and lead into madness, giving us
permission to go bonkers for over 30 years.