As we’ve come to expect from this series from Cherry Red/MVD audio we get a classy looking release- with the two-disc, each with there own card slip sleeves, come inside a six-panel gatefold. In the middle of the gatefold, we get a twenty-page inlay booklet- this features a seven-page write up by Jim Knipfel, this discusses the period these releases come from, the releases themselves, etc. Also featured is a write up about the bonus material, as well a host of rare photos/ paperwork from this post Resident period, and most of these I’ve never seen before.

Opening the first CD we have the infamous Warner Bros Album- this is the demo that the proto Residents recorded between 1970 and 1971, and this according to legend is how the project got its name- as the collective sent this demo to Warner Bros without a band name, the label sent back a ‘thanks-but-not-for us’ letter mailing it back to The Residents. The original demo took in thirty-six individual tracks- with a runtime of thirty-eight minutes, for this release they are cut into three-song suites. The original song/ tracks are each mostly short- lasting a few seconds, and nearing two minutes- with one or two tracks moving towards two and five minutes. The sound here is very, very rudimentary/ off-kilter blend of weedy guitars, crashing percussion, wonky harmonica, scuttling out of tune pianos, and mainly ranted vocals( which you often clear make out as the singing Residents)- later tracks adding in slight touches of very ham-fisted horn and extra percussive work. The whole thing has an extremely deranged, at times unhinged quality about it- I guess sonically you’d say it’s an often careering, muddled and haphazard blend of singer-songwriter fare, musical hall tunes, folk-rock, and noisy Avant grade. Where the project's first official release 1974 Meet The Residents was once again a blend of different genres- there was the focus, and it stayed in one place for a time- here it’s all over the place darting about like sugar-high toddler- pocking this, trying that, and more often than not getting in trouble. I guess you’d say it’s punk, before punk existent- but it’s certainly not simple or formatic- it’s a chaotic sonic mess, and depending on one's mindset when playing- it can either be a puzzling, jarring, at times amusing sonic trip, or decidedly annoying, grating, and frustrating.
Also on the first disc, we have two additional tracks- first of these is The Boardinghouse Show- this as its title suggests is a live recording, it lasts around thirteen minutes. If you thought The Warner Brothers Album was noisy, off-kilter, and deranged – this is even more so- it’s a very primal, messy and muddled blend of ranted vocals, churning shapeless guitars and bad free jazz horn work, and searing violin playing-from time-to-time the chaos breaks for strange musical hall moments, perverse sing-alongs, and strained/ manic speeches.
The final track here, "Philips Wedding Concentrated", and this has never been released before- the track lasts seven minutes and forty four seconds- and is another wondering/ shift primal live performance- with lots of strange chanting, random horn honks, laughing chatter, and silly voices- all very much noisy and largely nonsensical sonic performance art, that you feel like you don’t get the joke/ meaning of much of what is been created.

Moving onto the second and most of this is taken up by another infamous early release Baby Sex, or B.S as it’s known as here. This takes in eleven tracks, and around forty minutes of playtime- the sound here is a lot more competent, and formally played- with a blend of R ‘n’ B, folk-rock singsongs, music hall fare, and a cover of early Frank Zappa instrumental tune "King Kong". Though the tracks do slip in & out of coherence and its clear there’s a dada/quirky feel running through it all. If you’ve heard early Residents' work, you’ll be surprised how ‘normal’ some of this stuff sounds- and clearly the musicians are playing in a formal/ relatively competent manner.
The disc is topped off with two never released tracks- first we have "Chris Party"- this slides in at the thirteen-minute and twenty-five second mark, and again it’s fairly loose live jam/ performance art thing- with ranting vocals/ voices with at time weird creepy  cartoon leanings, followed by sudden pile up of horns, and lines of clapping and strange chants. The final track is a hidden/not listed, on my PC CD player it comes up as "Intro Tape 71"- this runs for just over three minutes, though there’s only about half a minute of audio, and this takes in the ranting & deranged intro that appears on a few of these early live tracks- though it’s slighty clearly/ different from these.

As a fairly long-term fan of The Residents, I was, of course, aware of both of these main releases, and had heard low-grade bootlegs of both. And once again, as with the other releases in this series the material gets a new transferred, restoration, and mastered by Scott Colburn- so it certainly all sounds slight more balanced/ cleared-up, though, with manic/ messy recordings like these, there is only so much can be done. As I mentioned at the start of my review- this is very much a release for long-term fans, or those wanting to hear the origins of the project- once again Cherry Red/MVD Audio/The Cryptic corp has done a definitive/ ultimate release of this material- and great to see them have the guts/ balls to release material as unhinged/ grating as much of the stuff here- it's not for everyone, but I’m guessing you now know if it’s for you or not.