Residents, The
Entry updated 22 January 2024. Tagged: Music.
US avant-garde art-rock and multimedia collective. A policy of deliberate mystification, apparently integral to the group's artistic practice, makes it hard to say who the members are, although Homer Flynn (1945- ) and Hardy Fox (1945-2018) are known to have been involved. Promotional material for the group often includes images of four figures dressed in tails and wearing masks, each shaped as a giant eyeball, that entirely enclose their heads. Sf, of a left-field or New Wave sort, often inflects their projects; as in the snappily satirical The Third Reich 'n' Roll (1976), or the multi-album concept work that began with Mark of the Mole (1981). This tells the story of the subterranean Mole People (humanoid, rather than soricomorphic) and their battles with the hedonistic surface dwelling Chubs. A sequel, The Tunes of Two Cities was released in 1982. The narrative of these two albums (an allegory for the encounter between European and African musical styles) formed the basis of a stage show, extra music from which was released as an EP: Intermission: Extraneous Music from the Residents' Mole Show (1983). The Big Bubble: Part Four of the Mole Trilogy (1985) continued the story. A single-release "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" (1986) adapts, and was intended to accompany a re-release of, the movie Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. [AR]
see also: Superjail.
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