Hard to tell if this is The Big Bang of contemporary pop
music or its collapse. Head-twisting and ear-bending.
Definitely an album of two sides. Side one demands and
commands your attention throughout - you never know what's
coming next. The quintessential Residents album, showing
the full breadth of their vision and their (developing)
abilities, it begs to be called 'strange'. And so it is.
But the key is printed right there on the sleeve: "Let the
strangeness wear off.. and you, too, will whistle the merry
tunes". And you will.
MTR (or how to make a record with a tape recorder, a piano
and your mam's kitchen utensils) is hardcore residential
stuff and can only be enjoyed by those who have done their
homework. Also if you are an upcoming sound engineer this
record is a invaluable tutorial in analogue recording
techniques. Persevere with it, and you be glad you did.
Discover new, positive things about it each time it hits
the turntable.
The instrumentation is quite varied, with lots of horns and
the use of a horrible overstrung piano (played through a
fuzzbox?). At one point, almost as a trailer for The Third
Reich 'N Roll, a Resident sings over the top of the Human
Beinzs' Nobody But Me. The mono sound quality is very basic
but that just adds to the experience. The recycled and
deformed Beatles cover announces a declaration of war on
conventional pop and rock.
Your ears are assaulted by a stream of rapid changes in
tempo and mood. The instruments are played badly but
brilliantly. Passages of "music" are savagely edited and
disjointed. The album shows a total lack of respect for
musicianship and normal production methods. They abandon
conventional song writing and instead make the LP a collage
of musical ideas stuck together with Masking Tape. The
first 15 minutes of side 1 are nothing short of genius. The
tunes come and go before you have a chance to get bored,
the playing is verging on violent, the music is raw
invention.