Reviewed by Tom Mott
Released: September 1981 The Residents Mark Of The Mole Genre: Experi-mental Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5 Tom’s Rating: 3.66 out of 5 Highlights: The New Machine: -Idea -Construction -Failure / Reconstruction -Success Final Confrontation: -Driving The Moles Away -Don't Tread On Me -The Short War -Resolution? tl;dr version: Interesting and idiosyncratic. Much more "Dr Demento" than, say, Rip Rig + Panic or John Martyn. If you like The Residents "Eskimo" this is a similar exploration of a fictional world. Spirit's Potato Land saga springs to mind. Long Version: I have a love/hate relationship with the Residents. A friend loaned me The Commercial Album in high school. Viscerally, I didn't like it. I could never make it past track 7 or 8. Every track on that album is 1 minute long, so after 8 minutes, you've been hit with 8 different ideas--not in a Jeff Lynne 4-hooks-per-song-with-sub-hooks-within-hooks way, but more like an acid brainstorm: Here's 8 song ideas. Don't like 'em? No problem! We've got 32 more! Huzzah! But that album opened my eyes to a whole new frontier of non-mainstream, not-even-punk, music. I love The Residents for that. When I saw Devo in 1983, The Residents were seated -- in top hats, tuxes, and eyeballs -- in the second or third row. I love The Residents for that too. I saw them perform live in 2013, and they were solid. Yes, they sometimes strayed into "aren't we quirky" territory, but they put on a good show. Somewhere in between, in the hazy late-80s early-90s, I discovered their albums Eskimo and Diskomo. Eskimo is interesting. It's imaginary ethno-musicography. As an art project, it mines our collective unconscious: We all have *some* blueprint in our minds of what life in the Arctic might be like and sound like -- right? -- even if we really have no idea at all. Eskimo is an evocative mix of icy sheets of sound with distant chanting. It's a compelling listen. Is it problematic? There's an "ooga-booga ooga-booga" aspect to it that I am less comfortable with in 2021, although I think The Residents are pretty self-aware and intentional. As for this particular album, Mark of the Mole: It's a concept album -- the first in a trilogy -- with a story. Like Eskimo, it's imagined ethno-musicography, but this time it's overtly imaginary, set in the fictional world of the Moles and Chubs. A flood forces the underground-dwelling Moles to flee their home to the land of the Chubs, who subjugate them. I think it's more accessible than The Commercial Album. Is that a good thing? I think so. There are some spoken-word sections that are presumably important to the overall story, but they're buried in the mix, so they're easy to ignore. I did. Like the voice-over in Blade Runner: if you really it, something's wrong. This is a coherent album that takes you on a journey. Most of the songs on Mark of the Mole are over 7 minutes, and work well as an odd sonic landscape for going about your life (dishes, emails, etc). AllMusic tags this with these album moods: Cerebral | Eccentric | Enigmatic | Ominous | Provocative | Spooky | Quirky | Clinical | Literate | Theatrical. I don't look for music that's specifically "cerebral" "quirky" "theatrical" or (GOD FORBID) "literate." I'm fine with "quirky" and "eccentric" when it's applied externally to an outsider artist like Daniel Johnston or Moondog. I'm not as fine with artists who try to be weird for weirdness sake. That's why, even though this is worth a listen, I can't give it 4 stars. I can't shake the feeling that The Residents are giggling in the background. It's a little too art school for me.
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