Residents - Eskimo
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Category: Music CD
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Music CD Cover
Artist: ResidentsEdition: Music CD
Format: Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 1997-09-23
Music Label: East Side Digital
Soundtracks:
- Walrus Hunt
- Birth
- Arctic Hysteria
- The Angry Angakok
- A Spirit Steals a Child
- The Festival of Death
Free Music Notes for Eskimo
Free Music Review: A brave, unique, visionary masterpiece
Hit: 5 Stars
I admit it. When this album came out all those years ago, I wanted to like it as much as I knew it deserved, but I couldn't. It was just too freaking weird, and if it was too weird for a Residents fan like myself, you know it had to be FAR OUT.
I absolutely loved the beautiful cover art, but the "music"? On previous releases, The Residents had made legends of themselves by deconstructing, demolishing, warping and reconstructing "rock" music into all sorts of weird mutations. But underneath all the strangeness, one could still feel the familiar beat of rock music.
With "Eskimo", they just completely left rock music behind. Not just rock, but all Western music, and all African-derived music forms. They also left English behind, and created their own gutteral language, which was supposed to sound like Inuit (I guess). They pushed the envelope so far that they burst through it and found themselves in an aural universe completely their own. Sui generis. It was a fantastic achievement. Brave and daring and bursting with hubris. "Eskimo" was (is) so OUT THERE, that you didn't know if you were being taken for a ride...maybe it was all just a joke? Another prank by these merry jesters?
I tried to like it. I listened to it repeatedly. My poor little brain just did not know what to do with these sweeping vistas of arctic sounds, chanting, strange tongues, pounding drums, clapping and occasional oases of "music" (like the last four minutes of "The Festival of Death".
It was not rock. It was not jazz, nor blues, nor western classical music. It wasn't anything like the African, Indian and Asian traditional musics that I'd heard. A lot of it didn't even sound like it was from our planet...
Years and decades have passed, and to my great surprise, I recently gave "Eskimo" another listen and was blown away. It finally makes sense to me. I guess all these years of exposing myself to music from around the world has stretched my ears enough that I can appreciate what the Residents created. I still don't know what it is, but I like it. And I recognize it as a crowning achievement in the art of sound.
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