The Residents — Triple Trouble OST

For the last fifty years, those avant-popster/ genre tricksters The Residents have never followed the rules, or done what’s been expected of them. Take this their latest release- it purports to be a standard soundtrack recording for their soon-to-be-released film Triple Trouble. But instead of featuring formal cues/ songs, it consists of seven shifting, at points darting soundscapes which bring together elements of brooding to bombastic mood scaping, weird dialogue samples (from the film I’m guessing), general musical genre weird-ness, theatrical spoken word oddness, with darts back into their back catalogue.
 

The CD release of this album appears as a joint release between Cherry Red, MVD, and The Cryptic corp. The CD comes presented in a hardback digipak- this features thirty-two pages. Contents wish it’s expectingly cryptic and bizarre, the glossy booklet opens with two pages of write-up about the film. Then the rest is made up of a blend of double and single page stills from the film, as well as large and bold texts. On the final page, we get details of who’s involved in the album/ project. So a nicely presented item- though you don’t find a terrible lot about what the film is about/ consists of….but I guess that gets you more hyped for the film.
 
Due to the shifting soundscape quality of the album, I’m not going to give a seven-track-by-track breakdown- as I feel this would be a rather dull read, and of course, rather spoil the whole shifts and surprises over the album. So instead I’ll run through some of my favourite tracks- and stand-out moments within these.
 
So the album begins with “Lost Inside A Soul” this opens with a brooding blend of bonding tones, dark ambient textures, and a female voice screaming I had “No choice” with a creepy and weaving keyboard melody appearing soon. All of a sudden we move into big band electro-jazz pomp- rather coming off like a modern-day take on the chubs material on  The Tunes Of Two Cities album. As we move on we get a dialogue sample of a man talking about a girl being run over by a train- then we’re back into a more expanded version of the electro big band music.
 
Later on, we have the track “A Phantom Philosophy” this starts with brief snippets of the creepy key melody, before moving into a blend of synthetical orchestrated climbs and atmospheric bombastic, with a sudden dart of a female dialogue sample.  Then we briefly stop off in bright electro beat scaping- before we go all weird noir with the singing Resident talking/singing over an aged blend of snapping beats, wonky panic darts, and wailing horn craft.  We then shift into more formal and rising scoring, which felt like dramatic 1950s soundtrack cues- before we get a sudden jarring tone hit, and move off into a shifting blend of brightly bobbing electronica, sudden bombastic scaping, darting keys with sinister ambience above, and more dialogue samples.
 
We play out with “Fungus Is Forever” and this opens with a blend of hazily stomping horns hits and wavering vibe tones, which in time gets the addition theremin-like tone eeriness. We then move into hovering and tolling dark ambience, with snippets of a woman talking about “a tiny dress” and spinning away like tape reels. Then we have a panicked man say “there here, what am I going to do”  a sudden tone stab, and distant fairground noise.  We then drop into the lead theme for The Resident's unfinished film “Whatever Happened To Vileness Fats” with its stabbing synth keys and wonky brooding electro atmosphere- this is added to with by a few new flourishes, be they musically or dialogue-wise. Before we move into sudden wavering darts of tolling keys ‘n’ horns, then a deep and electro-altered brooding voice talks about “stumbling into strange brooks once more”.
 
I’d say as a whole this Triple Trouble album will appeal most to seasoned and well-versed Residents fans- as there is a hell of a lot of references and darts back to the past. Also due to the shifting/ episodic soundscape quality of the album in general you’ll have to be more into the less formal songcraft side/ soundtrack side of the project. Personally, I loved every wonderfully odd minute of it- as still after many, many plays I haven’t totally got a handle on the various shifts and turns over the album. But that is coming from someone who is a long-term fan of the project, as well as someone who enjoys weird and shifting soundscaping.  I really can not wait to check out the Triple Trouble film now!.