The Residents — Wormwood Box(CD set)

Appearing in the year 1998 Wormwood: Curious Stories From The Bible was the twenty-third studio album from the mysterious and darkly playful US Avant collective The Residents. As its sub-title suggested it was a concept album that focused on disturbing, dark, brutal tales from the holy book- with a primal focus on the Old Testament. The resulting twenty track album was a prime example of the projects sonic/ genre yin ‘n’ yang- with unsettling discordancy/ wonkiness, sitting next to the grand, playful, and tuneful. With the album shifting through & blurring genres such as Broadway musical, avant rock opera, world music, late 90’s electronica, cinematic music, and even haphazard pop. Here as part of Cherry Reds/ MVD Audios/ New Ralph ‘pREServered’ series is a new & epic nine CD boxset, which charts the development of the album, and what it went onto be in a live setting.

The nine CDs are presented in a sky-blue flip side card box. Each disc comes in its own card sleeve, with the set been topped off with a colourful twenty-eight-page inlay booklet. The booklet features new writing about the album & this period of time in The Residents career. We get also get an album intro, loads of great pics from the period including some neat live show ones, full study notes from the original album- detailing whereabouts in the song stories come from in the bible. Studio paperwork, and a write up about the bonus material featured with-in. So, it’s another wonderful curated and produced addition to ‘pREServered’ series.

As an album Wormwood: Curious Stories From The Bible has a very special place in my heart- as it was the first new album that came out from the project- when I first started getting into them in the late 1990s. And I was also lucky enough to see them on the London date of the Wormwood tour-so I guess I may be somewhat biased when looking back/ reviewing the original album, but I hope I can remain balanced/ not too gushing about it.

The first CD in the set takes in the original twenty track album, and like all of the releases in the ‘pREServered’ series, it’s been given a remastering/ restoration by Scott Colburn. And I must say he’s done another great job, really bringing out subtle sound details, as well as balancing up the 
vocal and musical elements of the album.  As a whole the album stands as one of the project's more varied releases- this is due to the selection of different vocalists used, aside from the singing Resident. But also, the genres the album shifts through, blur, blend and at times deconstruct in only the way The Residents can. 
The album kicks off with “In the Beginning” which is an instrumental track that opens with the sound of thunder, a roar, subtle eastern ambient, and darkly droning horn work- as it progress, we switch to jaunting keys, marching electro-slightly ethnic percussion, and swirling strange vocal harmonies that nod back to the Eskimo days.
As we move into the album we go from tolling and moodily exuberate organ/ piano keys, dropping in & out beat work, and swirling synth horn details of “They Are the Meat” with the singing Resident topping the track with his singsong vocals. We have the mournful synthy string meets darkly plodding key work of “Cain and Abel” which features a rather glum and wavering male Broadway-like singer on top. There’s eastern horn groove meets quirky jaunting Avant pop of “God’s Magic Finger” with croaky Res vocals, and wacky buoyant male/ female chorus vocals. There’s the eerier tolling vibe/ gamelan ebb and build of “Bathsheba Bathes” which along the way adds in strange electro compressed eastern wail vocals, tick-tock percussion & key hits- all finished with singing Rez’s creepy sing-song voice. We have the choppy horn meets jaunting keys & wavering female vocalising of “Burn Baby Burn” which is a bright-if- unease crossbreed of Broadway music tune & avant pop- with ethnic horn flourishes. We have the all-out wailing ‘n’ wavering pop-gone- slightly wonky of “I hate Heaven” with its sail female vocals, and off-kilter horn ‘n’ vibe easy listening touches.  

With the album playing out with brooding to grandly stabbing instrument track “Revelation” which brings together discordant horn billows, manic fills of midi orchestration/ key runs, string swoons, galloping horse samples, and a general feel of dark wonky grander.  It’s a great and varied album, yes some of the tracks don’t work as well as others- and the production does sound of its time, and a little compressed/ overlayered- but as a whole album it’s another distinctive Residents album.

 

Moving onto the rest of the box and the other eight-discs of material. First, we two CDs worth of early experiments/ demos of what would become the Wormwood album- which are entitled Early Worms I & II.  The first disc takes in twenty-six tracks- these each have run times between around a minute to nearing six and are largely all instrumental. The tracks highlight both the clear and keen song melodies that were in place from the start, as well as of course the quirkier playful edges. We also get quite a few moments/ elements that didn’t land up on the album or got twisted/ developed more. The second disc features eleven tracks, and these have runtimes between two and eight minutes. These tracks feature more layers/ elements, including some nicely unbalancing sample touches- with vocals appearing on a few of the later tracks. This disc does feature a few different versions of tracks/ ideas, but each are interesting/ worthy as we can hear how ideas developed changed.  So as always with these ‘pREServered’ sets, these discs are the wonderful and fascinating sonic gold of this boxset for long-term fans of the project- really highlight The Residents working process and tooling of their songcraft.

 

Discs four and five take in a live performance of the album over three nights in October 1998 at San Francisco’s Filmore. The first disc features twelve tracks- and the sound setting here is very much more focused on rough ‘n’ blunt guitar work, and the singing roaring ‘n’ baying lead Rez vocals. In between the songs we get croakily creepy intros/explanations of the track’s stories. Gone are all the elegant & grand touches of the original album, and instead we get a much more earthy and at points, waveringly felt take on the album's tracks.
The second disc features another twelve tracks- and to start with we get no guitar, for the first four-track this is replaced with cascading gamelan percussion, ethnic drums, flutes, and singsong/ chanting male & female chorusing- with the singing Rez appearing here and there. By around track five, the guitar has returned, but it’s a lot more scuttling & wiry, with a backdrop of both subtle keys/ ambience, and ethnic percussion/ elements. The set is topped off with four classic Rez track from the past- "Smelly Tongues", "Moisture", "Picnic Boy", and "Walter Westerhouse"- and this been the Residents, the tracks are wonderfully reworked in often very different/ quirky manners.

Disc number six takes in Roadworms- this elven track album appeared in the year 2000. And it found the project presenting listeners with more guitar-focused/ live-sounding versions of Wormwood album tracks. Again, some of these are fairly different/ changed from both original tracks, and or live versions. It’s an interesting and at times worthy re-take on the material, but I’ve always felt the guitar was pushed a little too much to the fore- with the grander/ layered/ synthetic orchestrated elements stripped back.

 

Discs seven and eight collect together live recordings from the Wormwood tour around Europe in the summer of 1999- which is of the tour I saw in London. The first disc features thirteen tracks, and the second ten- and for the most part we get guitar-focused versions of album tracks again- though they are more moody/ technical in their feel than the first Filmore disc, with a backdrop of organ/ synth/ percussion- so somewhat of a crossbred between the two takes on the tracks, which is a happy enough medium- though I still do prefer the original album versions of these tracks.

 

The ninth is entitled Woodworms- and this features eleven tracks. We kick off with In Between Screams- which was the music used between the live sets on the wormwood tour. It runs at the 20.17 mark, and it’s an often electro beat lined mesh up of religious/ gospel song samples, and stabbing-to-moody synth elements. I think I brought a copy of this original at the London show, and at the time enjoyed it well enough- now playing it back there are some interesting elements here, though its programming/ sound does sound very late 90’s now.  Next, we have the track “Nober” which runs at six minutes forty mark, and sort of vibe electronica like an instrumental replay of themes from the album. The remaining nine tracks are live versions of album tracks from between the early 2000s up to 2014.

 

In conclusion, the Wormwood Box really is the most epic & definitive release in the ‘pREServered’ series thus fair. We really do get a full and in-depth look how at how the Wormwood songs developed and change-making this a must-have release for those interested in this period in the Residents history…. here’s very much looking to see what’s next in the ‘pREServered’ series!.