Eskimo (album)
| Eskimo | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by The Residents | ||||
| Released | September 1979 | |||
| Recorded | April 1976-May 1979 | |||
| Genre | Avant-garde, ambient | |||
| Length | 39:01 | |||
| Label | Ralph Records | |||
| Producer | The Residents | |||
| The Residents chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
| Ultimate-Guitar.com | [2] |
Eskimo is an album by the Residents. 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. Upon release it was hailed as the group's best record to date.
The pieces on Eskimo feature home-made instruments and chanting against backdrops of wind-like synthesizer noise and miscellaneous sound effects. The work is programmatic, each piece pairing music with text detailing a corresponding pseudo-ethnographic 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 While Eskimo is officially maintained to be a true historical document of life in the Arctic, the stories are deliberately absurd fictions only loosely based in actual Inuit culture, and the chanting is a combination of gibberish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.[3]
A companion piece, Diskomo, was released in 1980 as a 12-inch single, featuring a remix of the songs backed by a disco beat. Diskomo 2000, a follow-up EP featuring the original remix, its B-side (Goosebump, a collection of children's songs played on toy musical instruments), and several other versions, was released in 2000.
Track listing
- "The Walrus Hunt" – 4:01
- "Birth" – 4:33
- "Arctic Hysteria" – 5:57
- "The Angry Angakok" – 5:20
- "A Spirit Steals a Child" – 8:44
- "The Festival of Death" – 10:26
- Bonus tracks (1987 CD release only)
- "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"
- "Dumbo the Clown (Who Loved Christmas)"
- "Is He Really Bringing Roses? (The Replacement)"
- "Time's Up"
Personnel
- The Residents - vocals, instruments, effects
- Snakefinger - guitar
- Chris Cutler - percussion
- Don Preston - synthesizers