Customer Reviews

Big Bubble

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Big Bubble has an intersting, if not original, concept: a musical group makes recordings in their native language in defiance of the law, and become a hit. Is this a dream the Residents have for themselves? This is a part of the entire Mole legend that the Residents dreamed up, and have used in four previous recordings (Mark of the Mole, The Mole Show Live, The Tale of Two Cities, Intermission) However, as a whole, the Big Bubble is not a success. Using some of the most unlistenable singing the Residents ever released, and some of the most unlistenable music. I say this from the angle of a long-time (since 1978) Residents fan.

There are some interesting cuts, especially Cry for Fire (which can be best described as bad sex followed by an incredible orgasm) but get this only if you are a die hard - gotta have it all fan.

The Residents are a great band/art project, and this album is full of great musical ideas; unfortunately, it falls short of what it probably could have been. On the plus side, it is a dark, very sparse release with plenty of experimentation and great guitar work by Snakefinger. What probably ruins it the most is that most of the songs feature extremely annoying vocals; they are almost unlistenable, but this quality is more the product of being irritating than anything truly extreme or disturbing. This, combined with the fact that many of the songs are difficult to distinguish from one another, ruins what the album could have been. Perhaps this was the aim of the Residents with the Big Bubble, but it is guaranteed to be a difficult listen even for fans of their other work. It had potential, but the lack of memorable tracks as well as the annoying vocals certainly detract from this. All fans of the Residents should have it for their collection, but it may not be the most enjoyable to listen to.

This is part four Of The Residents Mole Trilogy, which is the tale of two very different races having to live together. The original LP of this album had an album cover picturing the eyeball folks, but if you peeled that off, underneath is another album cover, picturing four leisure-suited nerds (who are not the Residents). Even the LP label had a label on it. Now, the music on the disc is like nothing else. It is sung in the non-language of Mohelmot, which is garbled gibberish and the music is dramatic throughout even though the vocals are either very happy or extremely evil sounding. Truly scarier than any heavy metal vocals at times, trust me. At first, I didnt know what to think. Now it is one of my most listened to albums. However, like most residents albums, it takes a while to get used to. If you like annoying vocals, this is for you. Let me break the album down for you.

1. Sorry - Probably the weakest track on the album, nothing much on this 1

2. Hop A Little - Incredibly bizzare, it starts off with the lead singer happily speaking something almost like a scat, and then his demonic screams come in.

3. Go Where Ya Wanna Go - interesting garbled nonsense.

4. Gotta Gotta Get - Towards the end of the tune, the singer goes crazy. Very Weird and cool.

5. Cry For The Fire - Probably the best track here. really weird. Especially at 1:39 into the song when he begins to chant. The guitar by Snakefinger is awesome throughout. Hardy Fox's keyboard playing is great too.

6. Die Stay Go - More gibberish. Very funny.

7. Vinegar - A great track. The gibberish here is extremely good. The music towards the end sounds like "Constantinople" from Duckstab except faster.

8. Firefly - Even more weird gibberish, this time there are sort of lyrics.

9. The Big Bubble - The Big Bubble's Theme Song. This song should be a #1 hit.

10. Fear For The Future - The only instrumental on this album. Keyboard and guitar.

11. Kulla Bocca Says So - still gives me the goosebumps. At about 2:20 into the song you can here the singer smoking a joint. How can they smoke with the eyeball for a head?

The story of the album is this:

The Chubs are a happy race of people that live above ground (think your average mainstream type people), then there are the moles, a group of strange people that live underground (think underground artists). A storm comes and the Moles homes are destroyed and they have to live above ground. Soon the chubs and the Moles become disenchanted with each others races. A War breaks out. While all this is happening, a group of humans are becoming, known as a "Cross". a cross between mole and chub. Soon the language of the Moles (Mohelmot) is outlawed. A Pop group suddenly forms, known as "The Big Bubble". The lead singer, Ramsey Whiten was raised in a cross ghetto. His band becomes famous for their theme song "Cry For The Fire" sung in mohelmot. Ramsey is arrested, but released almost immediatley because of a huge public outcry. Ramsey is then fueled by fame, and thinks of himself as the new Messiah, representing beliefs of reactionary moles known as "Zinkenites". The Zinkenites wished to create a new Mole nation. But it turns out Ramsey was just a naive kid, manipulated by a Zinkenite politician named Kulla Bocca secretly pursuing a life of wealth and power. That was the end of the story. The project was never finished, and just like "Vileness Fats", the ending is forever a mystery. Rumor has it that the Mole Trilogy is based on what was going on with Residents at the time. Rumor also has it that the Residents are The Cryptic Corporation, which consists of Homer Flynn, Hardy Fox, John Kennedy and Jay Clem. Jay Clem and John Kennedy left around the time of The Big Bubble. Supposedly one of them earned a large sum of family money from the mining of aluminum. Also, if you'll notice "Kulla Bocca" is an anagram for "Alcoa Buck". We may never know what the answers are to The Big Bubble. It's definetley a great purchase if you like weird music to the extreme.

THis album was clearly recorded in another universe. It goes against all "normal" and "established" rules, at the same time it is disguised as a "pop record". Yeah, sure... a pop record by lunatics and a strange race of mole people. This CD ends in frightening note, with every song becoming more and more political until you get to "Fear to the Future" and realize the rise of demagogue Kula Bocca in "Kula Bocca Says So". I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the residents are a bunch of aliens. Adrian Ruiz.

I bought this CD, and it really does not sound like anything else out there. It definitely would make a great soundtrack for some futuristic sci-fi movie. Okay, maybe only for some 70's sci-fi movie, but it's still a pretty neat CD.

Not recommended for the Residential novice, but an essential for the eyeball audiophile!

The deep, gutteral "Mohelmot tongue" sang by "Kulla Bocca" is extremely earthy and raw. His musical accomplices add a dark savage beat to his whinings and gibberish.

This album is meant to be studied. All the stories and text in the liners are meant to be read while listening to this album. You will get an understanding of the Mohelmot culture and the Zinkenite struggles which the songs represent. Only with that understanding will the savage groanings of Kulla Bocca be understood in their proper prespective!

All joking aside, if you want a truly bizzare experience in listening to painful music that is flat out WEIRD, even for the Residents, then play this album and blast off into a permanent freakout!

This is the Residents doing yet another concept album. They seem to be taking their frustrations out in this studio album that at times actually sounds live. The lyrics are stupid (not that there are any. Most of the album is in Mohelmot which is basicly just a fictional language that's just weird gibberish). The instrumentation is RAW ad the vocals are RAW. It's THE Oddball Residents album. It's actually just underrated. I think it IS essential.

This is where it all started to decay and decline. I was (and still is) a hardcore fan of Residents early material, up until 1984 "Vileness Fats". But this "Big Bubble" is but as empty as its title. Almost everything The Residents did before this one was great and five stars.

Though tendencies started already with Mark of the Mole and Tunes of Two Cities (as well as the "history" albums), which took out the acoustic instruments and based composition solely on electronics, they still kept intact the residential idea and form.

Here the form is being mis shaped and the idea of compositions are straightway boring and a total decline from their earlier works. Apart from Snakefinger's good guitarplaying it is hardly endurable to even listen to at all. I think I've listened to this album, in its entirity, only but one or two times since it came out. I can sometimes listen to the last part of "Cry for the fire" (which is the "best" track on this set) because of the good guitar and the sillyish 80's drum machine.

From the miserable "Big Bubble" until today the Residents made a lot of recordings of same, or worse, noninspired boring sounds kind of stuff, not fun not weird, just outright boring and timewasting.

This was the first thing I heard from The Residents back in 1992 and it completely messed me up. One of their greatest work - simple and deeply meaningful!

ROCK'S best-known nobodies, the Residents, played their first New York show Thursday night at the Ritz. For 13 years, the members of the San Francisco-based group have stayed anonymous, releasing records regularly and touring occasionally, gaining a following among self-described ''weird music'' devotees.

With dancers, technicians and all but one musician wearing masks (the exception was the guest guitarist, Snakefinger Lithman), the group's identities remained hidden. The two hours of live music, plus Residents tapes between sets, touched on much of the group's output since 1974, although the bulk of the material came from such recent albums as ''Residue.'' In addition to their own songs, the band played severely revamped versions of ''Jailhouse Rock'' and James Brown's ''It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World.''

It was an obscure, dreamlike show. The black-clad musicians occasionally stepped forward, masked, for a recitative vocal; silent dancers (at one point manipulating life-size skeletal puppets) did routines geared to the lyrics. Illumination was provided, in part, by a troupe member waving a pair of electric lanterns. For the finale, the band members strutted out wearing white formal attire with their heads covered by spherical-eyeball masks and top hats, like a surreal chorus line.

Through the years, the Residents' orchestrations have shifted from tape collages to synthesizer tones. Structurally, their songwriting has barely budged. Their style is based on negatives. They use no vocal melodies, no danceable rhythms, no beguiling sounds. Lyrics, which are often strings of non sequiturs in nursery-rhyme meter, are delivered in growls and squawks and hoots and whimpers. The tunes are usually singsong, repetitive synthesizer riffs, joined or disputed by electric-guitar lines.

It is, in other words, simple music with portentous overlays. What makes it instantly recognizable is the Residents' harmonies (dissonant chromatic clashes), rhythms (singsong marches) and, especially, timbres. Swampy, ominous sounds are the Residents' specialty; they have refined and extended haunted-house noises beyond all expectations.

The Residents distrust pop music's easy pleasures and mass audience. They tend to equate commerciality with brainwashing. But for all their rebelliousness, the Residents' own music isn't much of an alternative; its tone is too constricted and puritanical. In the finale, Mr. Lithman started playing some zippy be-bop guitar. And the band members chased him offstage, as if to say: No Fun Allowed.