The Residents - The Ughs [Cryptic/Mvd Audio - 2009]‘The Ughs’ finds The Residents offer up an instrumental album that has a distinctive native American Indian & world music flavour to it, though of course fed through The Residents distinctive, slightly wonky & one- off take on sound making. The tracks are built with a mixture of :wavering synths textures, often ritualistic electronics beats, music samples with often a world- music tint that are messed, melted & twisted with. Quirkily played world & acoustic instrumentation such as: Jews harp, kazoo, ethnic percussions/ drums, gamelan textures and all manner of odd sounding instrumentation. Plus the odd hint of modern sounding Resident’s Guitar textures & the odd dabs of weird Residents vocalising that comes off like an updated version of some of their mock ethnic music from either Eskimo(through not as out-there) or The Mole Trilogy albums. Then the whole lots given a bit of a sonic stir & rearranged by pro-tools or something simlar. The tracks themselves are cleverly & (of course) quirkily constructed, there often memorable, off-kilter ethnical atmospherically & like anything Resident wise more than a little unhinged; though say that I can see this appealing to Resident virgins as it’s a little more approachable than their often puzzling concept albums. So something a little different, instrumental based & off kilter world music themed from the formally eyeballed & top-hat wearing ones. Certainly worth your time if you’re a fan of this distinctive project already, but if your new to the project this is an easy & less puzzling route into the projects one-off sound & huge back catalogue. Roger Batty
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