The Residents — Gingerbread Man

Originally released in 1994 Gingerbread Man was The Residents first foray into blending their distinctively quirky music with Computer graphics. With the original issues of the album featuring animations to play on ones PC, connecting into the tracks themes. This 2016 reissue sadly just comes with the audio elements of the album, so it does feel like something is missing- yet as it stands it’s one of The Residents more wordy & moody of their more theatrical albums.

The original album takes in ten tracks, and each of these are sonically variation of the Gingerbread man song. Each track introduces & tells the story of a selection of characters- like the Sold-Out artists, A dying oilman, a confused Transsexual, etc. Each  track features the half spoken/ half sang story of each character, with the Residents creating a moody, buoyant yet unsettling, and off-kilter backing- this sounds somewhere between demented carnival music, early 90’s electrionica, and warped show tunes.  As all the tracks are based around a variation on a single sonic theme, as a whole it is rather limited. Though they do manage to add  in interesting & character fitting additions &  sound effects to each of the tracks.

The reissue comes in the form of a CD in a jewel case, with a single colour inlay- featuring just pictures  from a live purformance of the piece. You do get two bonus/ extra tracks in a twenty minute instrumental suite, as well a concentrated/ condensed version of the album that runs just over the ten minute mark, and was recorded in the early 2000’s for the Icky Flick DVD.

It’s great to have this album back in print again, as it’s been out of print since it first came out- so this will give those who haven’t heard it to check it out. It’s just a pity the animated visual are not present, but maybe it was to awkward to convert them to a format that would work on today’s PC’s?!.