Out of print
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Santa Dog '84 |
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Santa Dog 2012 |
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THE RESIDENTS Refused
The Residents are an American art collective best known for their over 60 studio albums that were recorded over a period of over forty years. They also created some outstanding multimedia works, mainly three CD ROM projects and ten DVDs. Working as an anonymous collective, their identitites were kept secret until in 2017 Hardy Fox revealed himself as their primary composer. Hardy died in October 2018, but the group continue to record and perform. The compilation album Refused was originally released by the band's own Ralph America label in 1999 and collected 11 versions of the track "Santa Dog". For our 2019 Christmas re-issue, we have collected a total of 18 variations and have adapted the original artwork. Full tracklist: 1. Fire 2. Santa Dog '78 3. Santa Dog '84 4. Santa Dog '84 (Unfinished - A Work In Progress) 5. Santa Dog '88 6. Santa Dog N.Y.E. (Live) 7. Santa Dog '92 8. Famine 9. Pestilence 10. Flood 11. Plague 12. Fire '99/Santa Dog 2nd Millennium 13. Santa Dog 2006 14. Santa Dog 2012 15. Santa Dog 2017 16. Santa Dog For Gamelan Orchestra 17. Santa Cow 18. Santa Dog (Live 2013). Price: € 17,-/copy incl. worldwide shipping. !
Santa Dog was the first official sonic statement from the avant pop collective The Residents. (...) This being The Residents each take is different, at times drastically so as the collective try out various genres & instrumental/ vocal use on this most beloved of tracks. (...) As we move through the different takes of the track, these very much charts the changing/shift sound identity of the projec t- we go from Santa Dog 78- which features that Duck Stab album like blend of high-pitched cartoon vocals, melted & woozy electronics, and wailing main vocals. A few tracks on, we come to Santa Dog 88 - where we find a blend jaunting synth bass lines, tick-tack percussion, layered vocals, and synthetic Gamelan hits. Santa Dog 92 is the longest take on the material sliding in a few seconds sly of the thirteen-minute mark - here we have robot-like cracked Res vocals, moody & often darkly stretched synth scaping, bubbing/creepy sound textures, and a latter bright-to-bouncing vocoder lines. Further on with Santa Dog 2006 we find tight stabbing lines of guitar and cold snapping beats - wavering sometimes harmonic back vocals, and of course the ranting / wailing voice of the singing Rez. Towards the end of the release, we find a purely Gamelan version of the track which again is very different.
(Musique Machine, January 2020)
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