Residents
Not Available

I have just finished listening to this "Not Available" three times in a row. I'm shaken, a bit astounded, but very satisfied. And I have understood its meaning.

Let's take a step back to understand, in broad strokes, how these ambiguous human caricatures managed to perhaps give one of the greatest future predictions. This is how the discomfort of four musical futurists becomes avant-garde.

1974. We are still in the golden years. Certainly, there were already "mad scientists" at work with their brews, we remember Zappa, Van Vliet, the (recently deceased) psychedelic scene, the progressive one, in full activity, the emerging kraut, and among the many, these Residents, these sardonic men who parodied the Beatles by wearing suits and ties and a nice round and bloody eyeball on their heads. Those who scribbled on the cover of "Meet the Beatles", those who loved Zappa but also technology. Those who made music and didn't see even a penny. Those who were indisputably among the greatest musical minds of the 20th century.

1978. The Residents decide to release five experimental pieces from four years earlier, collected in "Not Available", where the late sixties' instrumental avant-garde meets electronic music and the synthesizer. And here's the synthesizer. But let's examine the album.

"Edweena", and right away the synth comes in, accompanied by a mighty beat. I already have the image in my head. My thoughts form, and I try to empathize them with the music. There's something that puts me ill at ease. I think about it, and at the entrance of the cursed piano, the word comes to mind. Unsettling. It gives me that sense of anguish and reminds me of that phrase by Lovecraft (it's also on my profile). "The greatest fear is of the unknown". I've never heard this music. And when the electronics come forward to make space among the macabre wails, this sensation of discomfort, of perpetual anguish becomes even heavier. It's the darkest dark. And that aura of mystery created around the figures of these four played musicians (according to urban legends, they have never shown their faces in public) makes everything darker.

I calm down a bit at the persistent start of "Making of a Soul" and the sax makes me feel better. Slowly, however, as the initial theme repeats, I almost feel the piano distorting under the beats and the sax. Then everything stops, and a suffering piano introduces this mournful, whispered voice. I think of Dalí at work with a brush, I think of a musical farce, a musical. A damn macabre musical. For a moment, the initial theme returns, then silence, then the synth, and then again advances this song as idiotic as it is resigned, continuing until the close. It sounds like the voice of a man who survived the electric chair.

"Ship's a' going down" deceives us with a very touching beginning, but the melody that emerges clashes deeply. A sort of mini-film. "The ship is going down". It could be the soundtrack to one of those many Titanic movies. People screwing around, rich and well-off people and poor but lucky people. All in a boat. People, however, unaware of the danger, who complain when they see that "the ship is going down", who are afraid to die, but fate is already sealed. Then the drama after death.

"Never Known Questions" is more catchy, it seems similar to Zappa's early compositions and his mother. It's the requiem of the funeral ceremony. A funeral that precedes the sense of loss, despair, resignation, and depression it entails. Then the imposing celebration of resignation, a solemn march.

"Epilogue" marks the end but also the beginning. "At the end, the beginning". In fact, the disturbing theme of "Edweena", the opening track, is revisited. It's the end, the musical is over, there's nothing more to show, everyone exits the theater. But there's the encore. And in the middle of the now empty stage, a newborn babbling and complaining. And it's at this point that the piano comes into play with that sense of grandeur again, as if a new life cycle were presented in front of us. The whole is sweetened by a gentle harp arpeggio, as if to say not everything is lost. We still have hope. That of not looking back and starting over, hoping for a better existence.

At the beginning, I told you I've listened to it three times in a row. Now you understand. The album is a kind of life cycle in which a human grows, lives, gets emotional, sometimes rejoices, sometimes despairs, then ages and finally dies. And the cycle starts again in an infinite continuum. I could spend hours and hours re-listening to this masterpiece, but it's time for dinner.