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Night of the Hunters

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Night of the Hunters is the thirtieth studio album by The Residents, initially given a limited release in 2007 as part of Ralph America's eL Ralpho Archive series.

The double album consists entirely of instrumental ambient tracks, allegedly based on material written by the group in 1993-94 for a project titled That Slab Called Night, which eventually became the soundtrack to the 1995 Discovery Channel documentary series Hunters: The World of Predators and Prey.

History

During production of Gingerbread Man, The Residents were commissioned to write and record 10 hours' worth of music for a Discovery Channel documentary titled 'Hunters' for premiere in December of 1994.

Although the group had recorded 10 hours (Or around about that) by that scheduled time, they felt that it was undoubtedly unfinished and continued to work on it during their off time. Eventually, The Residents submitted the complete soundtrack album in December of 2004.[1]

A few years later, in early 2007, The Residents searched through their archives to find the next release in the eL Ralpho Archive to follow their Best Left Unspoken trilogy, where they rediscovered the 'Hunters' recordings. Enjoying the material significantly, The Residents thought it would be a great subject of their next album as a treat for fans before The Voice Of Midnight was released later that year. The group began reworking the recordings, and came out with a 2 hour long epic dark ambient masterwork based around human perceptions in the dark. [2]

Then, to stir up interest in the album, The Residents began crafting a story around it, involving a 'lost' Residents album, intended for release between Gingerbread Man and Wormwood titled 'A Slab Called Night,' with the final album being a supposed reworking of A Slab Called Night.

Although the album did feature reworked selections of material originating from that era, the truth was that The Residents added the 'darkness' concept much later and that the material was indeed initially intended for the Hunters documentary series.[1] As a matter of fact, there was a real unreleased instrumental album recorded between Gingerbread Man and Wormwood, titled Scattered Unfinished Music Sketches, released in 2009.

Release

Ralph America announced the album on May 4th, 2007,[3][4] following the Best Left Unspoken trilogy. The album was eventually released through Ralph America in a limited quantity of 1,000 as a 2xCD set.

The album quickly went out of print but was eventually made available through The Residents' Bandcamp page on March 17th, 2015, with new artwork.[5] It was removed from the site within a year.
In 2021, Night of the Hunters was made available through digital streaming by Cherry Red Records.[6]

Reception

Contemporary

In a negative review, freelance music reviewer Mark Prindle derided Night of the Hunters as a collection of "boring, chintzy keyboard instrumentals", opining that "there is NO POSSIBLE WAY that more than one person was involved in the creation of this music", also noting that the album is "really really really long".[7]

Track Listing

Disc 1 (Dusk)

  1. Dark Found Light Lost (2:06)
  2. The Wrong Path (3:08)
  3. Dropped Pain (1:27)
  4. Broken Irony (12:36)
  5. Night of Lost Sight (2:27)
  6. Crystal Shards (1:23)
  7. In The Way (2:59)
  8. Flying Blind (8:37)
  9. Held Loosely (0:40)
  10. Rediscovered Lust (3:54)
  11. Stalking Dream (2:17)
  12. Dark Light (1:47)
  13. Mind Sight (2:31)

Disc 2 (Dawn)

  1. Scattered Thoughts (5:48)
  2. Doubting the Past (9:30)
  3. Memory of Light (5:59)
  4. Seeing What's Gone (3:46)
  5. Dreaming of Night (1:41)
  6. Refusing the Final Light (1:05)
  7. Failed Eyes (7:25)
  8. Slabs That Shine (10:27)

Liner notes

Somewhere between 1994's The Gingerbread Man and 1998's Wormwood, a Residents album disappeared.

Actually, it didn't disappear, it was usurped. The Residents received an offer to write some music for a television series and they couldn't pass up such an intriguing opportunity. Suddenly the album they were writing became a wholly different project.

That album, which had a working title of That Slab Called Night, was to be a concept project based on the effect darkness has on perception, the world of the shadow. Though never completed, in 2007 The Residents thought it would be insightful to sort through the then over ten years old music and create something new... Night of the Hunters.

Credits

See also

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Gingerbread Man pREServed liner notes (2021)
  2. ↑ Night of the Hunters - Historical - The Residents
  3. ↑ The Residents' Official News Blog, archived May 15th 2007 by archive.org
  4. ↑ RalphAmerica at The Wayback Machine
  5. ↑ Night of the Hunters | The Residents
  6. ↑ Night of the Hunters - The Residents - Spotify
  7. ↑ Mark Prindle, "Night Of The Hunters", Mark's Record Reviews, September 12th 2008
The Residents studio albums

Ralph Records (1972 - 1987)
Meet The Residents (1974) · The Third Reich 'n Roll (1976) · Fingerprince (1977) · Duck Stab!/Buster & Glen (1978)
Not Available (1978) · Eskimo (1979) · Commercial Album (1980) · Mark of the Mole (1981)
The Tunes of Two Cities (1982) · George & James (1984) · The Big Bubble (1985) · Stars & Hank Forever! (1986)

Ryko and Enigma (1988 - 1989)
God In Three Persons (1988) · The King & Eye (1989)

East Side Digital (1990 - 2002)
Freak Show (1990) · Our Finest Flowers (1992) · Gingerbread Man (1994) · Have A Bad Day (1996)
Wormwood (1998) · Demons Dance Alone (2002)

Mute Records (2004 - 2007)
Animal Lover (2005) · Tweedles! (2006) · The Voice of Midnight (2007)

MVD Audio (2008 - 2015)
The Bunny Boy (2008) · Lonely Teenager (2011) · Mush-Room (2013)

MVD Audio and Cherry Red (2016 - present)
The Ghost of Hope (2017) · Intruders (2018) · Metal, Meat & Bone (2020)

Fan club / off-label albums
Buckaroo Blues (1989) · The 12 Days of Brumalia (2004) · Night of the Hunters (2007)
Hades (2009) · Dollar General (2010) · Night Train To Nowhere! (2012)

Soundtrack albums
Whatever Happened To Vileness Fats? (1984) · The Census Taker (1985) · Hunters (1995) · Icky Flix (2001)
I Murdered Mommy! (2004) · Postcards From Patmos (2008) · Strange Culture/Haeckel's Tale (2010)
Chuck's Ghost Music (2011) · Theory of Obscurity Soundtrack (2014) · Sculpt (2016) · Music to Eat Bricks By (2019) · Triple Trouble (2022)

Collaborative albums
Title In Limbo with Renaldo & The Loaf (1983) · I Am A Resident! with You? (2018)

Live in the studio
Assorted Secrets (1984) · Roadworms: The Berlin Sessions (2000) · Talking Light Live In Rehearsal, Santa Cruz, California (2010)
Mole Dance 82 (2021) · Duck Stab! Alive! (2021)

Related articles
The Residents discography (W.E.I.R.D., 1979) · Ralph Records discography

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