The Walrus Hunt

The Residents : The Walrus Hunt

[Purchase]

In October of 1979, word was spreading of a new Residents album that sounded more like field recordings documenting Inuit culture than the avant garde, atonal often goofy songs the prankster band is best known for. Upon the release of Eskimo,  NME's Andy Gill raved "It's without doubt one of the most important albums ever made, if not the most important."

The Residents never set foot in the arctic. The entire album was recorded in their own studio at 444 Grove Street, three blocks from San Francisco City Hall. Drummer Chris Cutler says "I was more or less given free rein. I didn't have any music to play along to. They made me sit in a fridge and breathe Arctic air which had been brought back in Thermos flasks by their guru N. Senada." He added "All, none or some of the above might be true."

The album is made up of six vignettes : The Walrus Hunt, Birth, Arctic Hysteria, The Angry Angakok, A Spirit Steals A Child and The Festival of Death. All seem to rely heavily on a synthesizer that sounds like Arctic winds.

  Political correctness has not been kind to the concept of Eskimo. There are sensitive types who disapprove of white artists making up chants that sound vaguely like "Coke adds life" at one point in the otherwise beautiful "Festival of Death".

10,000 copies printed on white vinyl sold out. The album--the first to feature The Residents in their iconic eyeball costumes-- would sell more than 100,000. The follow-up? An eight minute edit of the album set to a disco beat. It's name? Diskomo.