The Residents: Wormwood, ESD, 1998
Conceptual artists employing a dada-esque mindset, the Residents are one of the quirkiest and downright original acts ever to enter a recording studio. Based in San Francisco, the group has released uncompromising music since the mid 70s.
Their debut, Meet the Residents, took the Meet the Beatles album cover artwork, modifying each Beatle’s face and in effect turning the fab four into mutants. Capitol Records was not amused, and subsequent pressings featured revamped artwork. A catalogue of over 30 releases includes such titles as Third Reich And Roll, Duckstab and 1989’s The King & Eye, a slightly more accessible disc which coupled reworked Elvis Presley songs with narration to a group of young listeners, confused as to just what sort of monarch this was.
Subtitled Curious Stories From The Bible, Wormwood is a collection of 20 tracks inspired by scripture. A spokesman for the group (they’ve never spoken publicly) describes the album as “The Residents’ window onto an ancient and bizarre culture.”
Claiming the Bible has been “handicapped” and “held hostage by zealots,” the project isn’t taking a stand against intolerance as much as offering “another voice.” These are not the stories dealt with on a typical Sunday sermon. Titles like They Are The Meat and Spilling The Seed are never going to be endorsed by Focus On The Family. The disc’s booklet contains lyrics, commentary and relevant scripture for those who would doubt these tales really come from the Bible.
For those interested in learning more regarding these curious stories, a few books worth checking out would be the Hard Sayings series (InterVarsity Press) and Gleason L. Archer’s Encylopedia of Bible Difficulties (Zondervan 1982).
As for the group’s own philosophy, the spokesman claims it’s quite random: “They feel that we’re all rolling around in a giant pinball machine”…. “If you’re lucky, you get to reach out and punch the flipper every 10 or 15 years.”
© John Cody 1999