The Residents – Duck Stab

Comparing this with a first pressing and I noticed that the stereo channels are switched around on this pressing. It's most noticeable on Sinister Exaggerator which has a lot of stereo separated elements (Snakefinger's guitar is supposed to be in the left channel but on this release it's on the right). I dunno if this affects any other vinyl or CD (it is fine on the pREServed editions, I also checked that) or other albums but it's something to keep in mind when getting this particular pressing

this album very much represents a polished concoction of residential macabre! the jingles and quirky styles are just one layer of the much more complex and fascinating elements of the art itself. the lyrics are very cryptic and sometimes morbid like early residents work like fingerprince and the W.B. tracks.

Newbury Comics will be selling an exclusive edition of this and Eskimo sometime soon!!!
https://twitter.com/newburycomics/status/1433507213872615433

One of my very favourite Residents albums, and perhaps the best thing they did in the 70's, period. And that's not just because it's their most accessible. Here, everything the four eyeball-headed weirdos were ever meant to represent is distilled into a collection of 14 concise pastiches of pop music that are all catchy and genuinely spine-chillingly terrifying at the same time (things get veeery creepy on side 2, also known as 'Buster and Glen' - and even *spoiler alert* hauntingly beautiful).

Absolutely everything works and falls into place on this brilliant, B-movie-like experience - from the melding of the primitive brass/percussion/toy instruments typical of 70's Residents music with synthetic, ominous synths/keyboards, to the pioneering use of digital harmonizer pitch-shifting, and onto the witty, cryptic lyrics (nobody wrote rhymes QUITE like the Residents ever did...) - and Snakefinger's soul-melting, dissonant slide guitar and violin work is the icing on the cake.

As for the pressing, this is one of three LPs I own from MVD's reissue series, and I can confidently say that this is the best of them all. I'm pretty sure that this is sourced from a 44.1k/16 master (as had been established when I first noticed the mastering errors on the Meet the Residents reissue), but don't let that fool you: this remaster is amazingly dynamic and unrestrained when compared to the other Residents reissues I have, and it sounds astonishingly analogue in its fullness, with smooth, natural-sounding highs and tight bass.

While I sense that some digital noise reduction was applied to the master, as it was on the extended Not Available reissue, I couldn't notice it anywhere outside one glaring moment in the fade-out of "Hello Skinny", so there's really nothing to detract from the immersive "analogue fullness" and excellent tonal balance of this pressing. The vinyl, pressed by Gotta Groove, is nice and quiet with no defects, as are the other two Residents reissues I have. (While GGR vinyl isn't necessarily as dead-quiet as the very best European vinyl, it's definitely a BIG cut above Rainbo and United in of quality control.)

Anyone looking for a high-quality vinyl reissue of DS/B&G definitely won't be disappointed by this one.