Charles Bobuck - The Residents Presents: Codgers On The Moon [MVD Audio/ - 2014]Codgers On The Moon is a collection of mainly up-beat, moody, and ethnic tinged electro instrumental pieces from one of the main minds behind The Residents. I guess if you were to compare this to anything in the Residents forty year catalogue, it would be their soundtrack or PC game soundtrack work, which they’ve released on & off over the last twenty or so years….so really this is not a new/ full Residents albums, but more of a sonic side thought. The predominant element through-out all of these eleven tracks is gamelan like percussion & sound, really every one of the tracks has these elements at it’s centre with some subtle stabbing synth banks, synthesized instrumental elements, & electro textures ebbed around the sides of the tracks. I think all of the gamelan elements here are created with-in a electronic setting, through there may-be some actually live playing going on here too. Each track is fairly melodic & dense in it’s attack, and fitting the gamelan focuses there’s often a oriental feel to the melody lines, though also you get hints of melody lines from through-out the bands career. On the whole this is a rewarding enough collection of instrumental tracks that run through with both ethnic/ oriental melodies, and subtle Resident based medloies. For the most part the tracks stay fairly up-beat, but there’s enough variation here to make it appealing through-out. Though that said I can only really see this appealing to long term Resident fans, who particularly enjoy the more soundtrack & gamelan focused side of their sound. Roger Batty
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