Customer Reviews

Eskimo

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

Possibly one of the best albums ever put together, Eskimo is The Residents crowning achievement. Operating on several levels, the album is a collection of six eskimo tales told in the Residents inimitable style - a combination of the ridiculous and the sublime. Whilst being deadly serious on one level, it operates with hilarity on another.
Being lucky enough to possess recordings of actual Eskimo tribes from Hudson Bay (folkways recordings), I can report that the Residents did their homework and have produced sounds which are astonishingly ethnographically accurate. Eskimo chant rhythyms and forms are blended with other-wordly synthesised sounds to take you onto the ice. If you close your eyes you could almost be there in the stories - there is a moment of touching and exquisite beauty as the eskimos dance for the end of winter and the first light as the sun rises for the first time in six months and, with a little imagination, you can be there as they rejoice at its emergence.
Beautifully presented in the vinyl gatefold cover, the stories are written out and it adds to the experience if you read as you listen and contemplate. Musically it is great - very residential and a bit 'out there' but there are some passages that are genuinely brilliant and very trippy.
Not a casual, easy listen - but then the Residents are probably not for the casual listener. If you see this, you must snap it up! Simply a must-have.

This record was unlike any record in pop culture when it was released in the mid-seventies. The closest genre I can affiliate it with is ambient, but this one with scare you not sooth you! If you don't know anything about The Residents, I would NOT suggest starting with this one, but you will end up getting it in the end. The following decade, the San Francisco Bay band got noted for their theatrical performances, largely driven by the underground success of this record. One does not merely listen to this record. It draws you deep to places you have never been and may not want to ever visit ! This is music so-to-speak to make to shiver and think. Artistically astounding! Great spin and not for dancing!

Twisted experimental alternative music meets pop culture and yes Eskimo culture. This is an album before and after it's time. It is an entire story (that makes little sense) told musically. The R's spent over a year making this album, building their own authentic Eskimo instruments. By the way Eskimos use a completely different scale system than we do. Very visual- see the imagery as you listen. A band that purposely never sold out- brilliant. Cultural comments every few seconds. Irreplacable. Unique. One of the R's 3 best efforts including Commercial Album and Not Available.

The first time I bought Eskimo it was an LP and the disc itself
was white. The ground cracks open and four pilgrims emerge from
the icy terrain with tales of Eskimo culture and legends or the
crack is a smile and the four eyeballs are but one monster.
Suddenly an innocent study in anthropology becomes offensive
and very personal. Very cold indeed.
The CD art sadly lacks by comparison but
all in all this is an incredibly elusive, important piece of
work.

The Residents aren't musicians. They are artists, but they choose to use music and sound collage as their main medium. PLEASE keep that in mind as you listen to this album.

If you decide to take the plunge and listen to The Residents, brace yourself for a shock. Song structure, choruses, the entire basis of pop music is thrown out and mercilessly skewered. Eskimo stands as one of the great examples of how the giant eyeballs can create non-musical music.

Eskimo is even more interesting when you know a bit about the Eskimo Myth... how N. Senada, the Residents' guru, came back from a trip to the Yukon with a thermos full of "arctic air" and bizzare stories about eskimo instruments. According to the myth, the Residents went into seclusion, learning how to make traditional "eskimo" instruments and learning about their mythology and culture, creating an album that embraced Eskimo culture. Does it sound like a crock of ...? It probably is... the Residents like to surround themselves with obvious lies and disinformation, after all.

But true or not, the myth is fun, and it makes Eskimo a real treat to listen to. So put on your headphones, turn down the lights, and let them take you away to the frigid north.

While this in my opinion isn't their best, some regard it as a masterpiece (Not Available IS THE Masterpiece).I enjoy this on the coldest nights of the year, preferably on headphones. Not an easy listen and definitely not background music. To appreciate it fully you must listen actively and follow the story, then you "get it".

Ok its an old album, its their most accessible album, its modernist picture-programme music, its got fake eskimos singing about a well known soft drink, its cultural imperialism, its

BRILLIANT.
I don't say that often. Its not beethoven's string quartet in a-minor, but
its part of the glorious history of rock.
Who knows what it was played on, found electronics, egg slicers etc, certainly not guitars...
All in all one of the essential 70s albums, and it certainly aint abba

Admittedly not a casual listen, and not for toe tappers and finger snappers. This is an immersive album, and having seen the film of sorts
may help one to get into it. Personally I think it is many things from frightening to beautiful. Amazing. Listen to it in the dark and see where it takes you. For me it works; the north seems to be a cold,
strange and mysterious place, and The Residents, most excellent guides.

Though the average listener of modern commercial rock would find this style of music difficult to digest, it is one of the most inovative and experimental albums ever produced. Actually, most everything by the Residents is that way. Also check out their interactive CD-ROM game, Bad Day On the Midway.