Originally recorded in 1971, The Residents’ debut The Warner Bros Album was rejected and has remained unreleased until now. Its first outing is as a remix LP, and it’s fabulous. Prime early-era Residents, it’s an idiosyncratic assault on contemporary music (The Beatles, Dylan) and society using chaotic avant jazz/rock/classical weaponry. To hear this already deconstructed music fed through the mincer of contemporary electronica only makes it even more confusing, disorienting, beguiling and downright delightful. German techno-whizz Paralyzer’s remix of 1989’s The King & Eye is far less successful. Lacking in any real sense of alchemy, this is just the original LP overlaid with breakbeats and swathes of synth.
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