RHODIUM 5

There's always been a sense of mystery around avant-garde group The Residents, mostly to do with the members' identities. However, the biggest mystery for me is how they and their label, Ralph Records, lost their way so badly and so quickly after the release of their last great album Eskimo (1979): their dozens of efforts since have been throwaway rubbish. The music and its presentation, where once it had been lavishly and lovingly created, suddenly became crude and slapdash; and it's even sadder the way the superb 70s albums were so shoddily reissued on CD: poorly mastered audio and embarrassingly sloppy artwork/liner notes. One can only assume there was a critical parting of ways in the group's formation for such a schism to have occurred.

While I consider Meet The Residents (1974) a classic of its time, and one of the first albums that truly inspired me to make music, I consider Fingerprince (1976) to be their greatest; indeed I have a lot to thank it for - it was my passing mention of it to Lora Logic in an audition that ultimately allowed me the chance to do music as a career.

The Residents : Fingerprince (1976)

Although there's since been the usual Cryptic Corporation nonsense about this originally being a 3-sided release blah blah - after listening to the 'complete' CD reissue, it seems pretty clear to me that the extra tracks were rightly not included on the definitive original vinyl album.

But enough bitching about that - the original Fingerprince is an exquisitely conceived and perfectly balanced album. It manages to be simultaneously challenging yet accessible - I know I must have played it hundreds of times and never tire of listening to its subtleties, discovering new intricacies even now.

Side A consists of eight perfectly sequenced delightful tracks each of short duration, full of The Residents' trademark eclecticism and dadaist sensibilities. The opening bars of bossanova rhythms on You Yesyesyes initially seem fairly ordinary, yet once the idiosyncratic chanting and discordant melodies join in, you are induced into the band's strangely delicious creepy universe. Side B's gorgeous Six Things To A Cycle is a surreal twisted baroque suite with some incredibly inventive use of instruments such as gamelans, basses, violins, brass, kettle drums, along with odd sound effects, trademark background chants, and god knows what else. The bizarre elusive melodies, rhythms, and swirling leitmotifs captivate you from beginning to end.

Experimental music that would subsequently attempt to imitate this dadaist style was never able to replicate the inherent musicality, the originality, the economy of expression, and the pristine sound quality that all combine to make Fingerprince such a special achievement.

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At around the age of 18 until my early 20s, I used to be excruciatingly purist about music. Most everything would be summarily rejected as rubbish, save for a tiny handul of records that I deemed - in my insufferable arrogance - as all you needed for a 'real' collection, to the extent that, at one stage, this was whittled down to a mere three vinyls. The following LP on the legendary ESP label (also home to recordings by Albert Ayler, Charles Manson and family, and innumerable other wonderful weird gems) was one of that still highly valued triumvirate.

Cro-Magnon : Orgasm (1969)

Despite its tragically shoddy sleeve and label art, Cro-Magnon's Orgasm is, in my opinion, quite simply the most important experimental (for want of a better term) record of all time.

In its day, it was mostly dismissed as an oddball exercise in psychedelia - yet, in truth, it's about as far removed from disposable crap like 13th Floor Elevators, Love, and Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd as it's possible to go. There are eight eclectic tracks that each boast more original new ideas than nearly all other bands achieve in a lifetime - and despite this wide diversity, they all work perfectly well as a whole, in their chosen sequence, and combine to provide an adventure that's unpredictable, exhilarating, startling, and at times unnervingly absurd.

Revisiting Orgasm in 2009, one is immediately struck by how many subsequent bands and genres echoed these ideas: Nurse With Wound, Faust, The Residents (who some allege were involved with the Cro-Magnon project, though it seems that Cro-Magnon's Austin Grasmere and Brian Elliot were in fact bubblegum pop songwriters), neofolk, drone, avant-garde, noise, guitar improv freakery, and more. And of course, my own music too: this album was unquestionably a huge inspiration, not only musically, but also in the sense of artistically opening a mind to a truly radical imperative.

It's difficult even to appreciate what Cro-Magnon were thinking at the time, or how they were inspired to make these mysterious sounds in the first place. Robert Ashley, perhaps? It's like it almost dropped out of the sky from another galaxy. And I can think of no greater compliment than that with regard to its uncompromising originality.

I just noticed this year's forthcoming Instal Festival's rather dodgy corporate-style branding and self-given 'Brave New Music' epithet, in addition to an uncomfortably self-conscious view of what avant-garde music represents along with its expected audience. If you're not familiar with Orgasm, then do make a point of finding it (there are vinyl and CD reissues out there); experience for yourself what open-minded and brave, and new and innovative, can genuinely represent. It's that good.

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