Blown Away! by The Residents. Courtesy of the
Cryptic Corporation.
In 1980, a year before the launch of MTV,
The Residents, a reclusive San Francisco-based band, released
Commercial Album along with four short films (
Moisture,
Act of Being Polite,
Perfect Love and
The Simple Song) based on tracks from the album. The Residents' pioneering work is often cited as contributing to the development of the
modern music video artform, and their
One Minute Movies, directed by Graeme Whifler, are now part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
According to the Web site
The Moles, "The premise of the
Commercial Album... was for The Residents to create their own 'top-forty' of one-minute songs -- one minute being the length of a typical TV commercial. Taking over where the group's 1978 classic
Duck Stab left off, the
Commercial Album further distills the music of The Residents into a stream of compact and multi-faceted avant-pop gems. A model of economy, the songs on this kaleidoscopic album constantly convey more with less."
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the
Commercial Album,
Mute Records has issued a Special Edition DVD to both compliment and complete the project with an amazing collection of 56 one-minute films based on the original 40
Commercial Album songs.
"In order to produce this large number of films," the Mute site reports, "in addition to themselves, The Residents have assembled an outstanding group of 42 visual artists from around the world [including Kar Aermann, Leigh Barbier, Ty Bardi, Doug Carney, Bulk Foodveyor, Fabrice Fouquet, Incorect, Andrew Koehler, Harry Lagoussis, Chip Lord, John McNaughton, Cedric Mercier, Eric Montchaud, Takeshi Murata, Eric Nordhauser, Eun-Ha Paek, John Payson, The Penguin Bros., Martin Redlich, Stephane Ricard, Rosto A.D., Jean-Michel Roux, John Sanborn, Gunter Segers, Rajendra Serber, Rich Shupe, Casey Stockdon, Geert Vandenbroele, Veber Veber, Luk Willekens, and others]. Working in various forms ranging from animation, live action, and puppetry to drawing, photography and sculpture, the disc is a virtual film festival in miniature. In addition The DVD has an innovative game-like interface that allows viewers to explore a maze in the process of viewing the videos. This complex of rooms contains a unpredictable series of interactive features as it reveals the 56 videos created by The Residents and their all star cast of visual collaborators."
On December 1 at 8:30 p.m., the
Museum of Modern Art in New York will screen ten new one-minute music videos by The Residents from the
Commercial Album Special Edition DVD as part of its series of film and video premieres celebrating the reopening of the museum.
# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 11/16/2004 02:59:00 PM
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