The Residents Preserved

Formed in the early 1970s, The Residents have been charting a unique path through the musical landscape for over 45 years. From far-out, experimental recordings to highly conceptual, innovative multi-platform projects, the band has refused to stand still, and continues to move in several different directions at once. Produced with the involvement of The Cryptic Corporation, and with full access to the band’s extensive tape archive, this package explores and expands the classic debut album and related 1972-1973 material. Including both mono and stereo mixes of “Meet The Residents”, the ‘Santa Dog’ EP, alternate versions of classic album tracks and other long-lost unreleased material, this is The Residents as we’ve always wanted to hear them. Remastered, expanded, and pREServed for future generations – this is the first in a series of archival Residents reissues that will continue throughout 2018 and beyond.

As the second Millennium AD drew to a close, The Residents began to take stock on a couple of thousand years of reasonably fruitful human endeavour. One text, they felt, had inescapably set the tone and dominated the narrative throughout the Western world for most of that period, often clouding the view as they looked back. Sure enough, The Bible, Testaments Old and New, seemed like fertile ground for a confused, anonymous band approaching their fourth decade. Throughout 1998 and 1999, The Residents set about writing, recording and extensively touring a set of songs based around some of the more curious, unsettling and downright messed up stories they found upon revisiting their old Sunday School Bibles, and present here the results of those industrious years. Complete with demos and sketches, two full live recordings, a live-in-the-studio reworking and the usual assorted ephemera plus later live recordings, 'The Wormwood Box' showcases a project the band still think of very fondly, and have often revisited. Join us and marvel as the Eyeball Oddballs somehow cram murder, rape, incest, vengeance, slaughter and, erm, circumcision into a radio friendly pop format!