''Eskimo'' is the sixth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

by American

art rock Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that generally reflects a challenging or avant-garde approach to rock, or which makes use of modernist, experimental, or unconventional elements. Art rock aspires to elevate rock from entertainment to an ar ...

group

the Residents The Residents are an American art collective and art rock band best known for their avant-garde music and multimedia works. Since their first official release, ''Meet the Residents'' (1974), they have released over 60 albums, numerous music vid ...

. The album was originally supposed to follow 1977's '' Fingerprince''; however, due to many delays and arguments with management, it was not released until 1979. The pieces on ''Eskimo'' feature home-made instruments and chanting against backdrops of wind-like

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

noise and miscellaneous sound effects. The work is programmatic, each piece pairing music with text detailing a corresponding pseudo-

ethnographic Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

narrative. While ''Eskimo'' is officially maintained to be a true historical document of life in the Arctic, the stories are deliberately absurd fictions only loosely based in actual

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

culture, and the chanting is a combination of gibberish and commercial slogans. The album satirizes ignorance toward and mistreatment of the

indigenous peoples of the Americas In the Americas, Indigenous peoples comprise the two continents' pre-Columbian inhabitants, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with them in the 15th century, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with the pre-Columbian population of ...

Diskomo

A companion piece, ''Diskomo'', was released in 1980 as a 12-inch single, featuring a remix of the songs backed by a disco beat. In 1988, ''Diskomo'' was covered by Belgian

new beat New beat is a Belgian electronic dance music genre that fuses elements of new wave, hi-NRG,Simon Reynolds: ''Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture.'' Routledge 1999, , p. 124. EBM and hip hop (e.g. scratching).Timor ...

group L&O, and retitled "Even Now". ''Diskomo 2000'', a follow-up EP featuring the original remix, its

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph record, vinyl records and Compact cassette, cassettes, and the terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side of a Single (music), single usually ...

(''Goosebump'', a collection of children's songs played on toy musical instruments), and several other versions, was released in 2000. The EP's title track, "Diskomo 2000" redoes ''Diskomo'' in the style of "Even Now".

Critical reception

The '' Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel'' wrote that "''Eskimo'' is truly a new branch on the rock and roll family tree, truly original music, a new sound." ''

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spin (physics) or particle spin, a fundamental property of elementary particles * Spin quantum number, a number which defines the value of a particle's spin * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thr ...

'' called it "an album-length threnody for wind machine and invented language". ''

The Rolling Stone Album Guide ''The Rolling Stone Album Guide'', previously known as ''The Rolling Stone Record Guide'', is a book that contains professional music reviews written and edited by staff members from ''Rolling Stone'' magazine. Its first edition was published in 1 ...

'' deemed ''Eskimo'' "a dreary and dank concept album." The ''

Spin Alternative Record Guide The ''Spin Alternative Record Guide'' is a music reference book compiled by the American music magazine ''Spin (magazine), Spin'' and published in 1995 by Vintage Books. It was editing, edited by the rock music, rock critic Eric Weisbard and Crai ...

'' called it "creepy and funny" and "the Residents' zenith."

Track listing

1987 CD bonus tracks

Tracks 7-10 taken from the 1979 album ''Subterranean Modern''. The album also featured the music of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

bands Chrome, MX-80 Sound and Tuxedomoon.

2019 pREServed edition bonus tracks

Personnel

The Residents The Residents are an American art collective and art rock band best known for their avant-garde music and multimedia works. Since their first official release, ''Meet the Residents'' (1974), they have released over 60 albums, numerous music vid ...

– vocals, instruments, effects *

Snakefinger Philip Charles Lithman (17 June 1949 – 1 July 1987), who performed under the stage name Snakefinger, was an English musician, singer and songwriter. A multi-instrumentalist, he was best known for his guitar and violin work and his collab ...

–

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

Chris Cutler Chris Cutler (born 4 January 1947) is an English percussionist, composer, lyricist and music theorist. Best known for his work with English avant-rock group Henry Cow, Cutler was also a member and drummer of other bands, including Art Bears, N ...

–

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

Don Preston Donald Ward Preston (born September 21, 1932) is an American jazz and rock keyboardist. He is best known for being a member of the original version of Frank Zappa's band The Mothers of Invention during the late 1960s. He continued to work with Z ...

–

References

{{Authority control The Residents albums 1979 albums Ralph Records albums