The Residents – Meet The Residents – Vinyl LP

• Strictly limited to 500 copies.
• Gloriously mastered by Joe Lizzi and cut & pressed by Third Man in Detroit.
• Exquisitely restored artwork matching the original Ralph Records mono pressing.
• Pressed on opaque lime green vinyl.
• This is a stunner that we will be crushed to see go and when it’s gone, it’s gone. Don’t blame us if you sleep on it and it gets crazed Discogs pricing as we wish we could make more but can’t.

“Unlike other singular artists– say, Tom Waits, or the Flaming Lips– who began in more conventional modes and gradually developed their own voices, the Residents pulled their never-heard-before sound from the womb fully-formed. Throughout the album’s 12 tracks you can hear all the basic elements they still play with today: murky atmospheres, odd time signatures, bouncing beats, skewed classical figures, and simple melodies that sound both child-like and eerie.

Especially distinctive are the vocals of someone first referred to by fans as the ‘lead’ Resident (he would become known as Mr. Skull after he traded his eyeball mask for a skeleton head, and lately has been referred to as ‘Randy’). His pitch and phrasing neatly encapsulate the many moods of the band’s music. He can be funny, creepy, nerdy, cartoon-like, surreal, and terrifying (especially when he growls in a gravelly low register), often all at the same time. His signature is strongest on ‘Smelly Tongues,’ wherein his wry croon sounds like the slow-motion cry of a somnambulant ringmaster.

So the Residents immediately made music that sounded new, but what about turning other people’s music into something equally unprecedented? Meet the Residents takes care of that with ‘Boots,’ a 53-second aural nightmare of demented vocals and muffled sounds that is purportedly a ‘cover’ of Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.’ Such absurd bastardization extends to the album’s artwork, a parody of Meet the Beatles! featuring the defaced visages of the Fab Four on the front, and credits to ‘John Crawfish, George Crawfish, Paul McCrawfish, and Ringo Starfish’ on the back.” (pitchfork)

Side A
1 Boots
2 Numb Erone
3 Guylum Bardot
4 Breath And Length
5 Consuelo’s Departure
6 Smelly Tongues
7 Rest Aria
8 Skratz
9 Spotted Pinto Bean

Side B
1 Infant Tango
2 Seasoned Greetings
3 N-ER-GEE