February
15th marks the 45th anniversary of The Residents’ fourth LP,
Fingerprince, which was released on this day in 1977. Technically, it
was their third album to be released after Meet the Residents and Third
Reich 'N Roll, but that’s only because their second album, Not
Available, was withheld from actual release until 1978. It could also
be considered their fifth album if you count the abandoned Warner Bros
LP that was scrapped before releasing Meet the Residents in 1974. It’s
all very confusing.
The original concept for Fingerprince was to
issue a triple sided album, basically a double LP with the fourth side
blank. This plan was eventually shelved due to budgetary restrictions.
What was released on the album was the first two thirds and the
remaining material was later issued in 1979 as a 7” EP called
Babyfingers. All three parts of the album were finally reunited in 1987
when the album was reissued on CD. Subsequently, they have remained as
a unit ever since. The 2018 pREServed edition of the album adds a
second CD of unreleased outtakes, demos, live recordings and other bits
of ephemera related to the album.
Musically, The Residents were
in a transitional stage when recording this material as they were
starting to evolve away from the raw, primitive approach of their first
albums and were moving into more refined and concise compositions with
streamlined, minimal arrangements. The rough edges are still there, but
there’s more use of electronics coming to the fore and guitarist,
Snakefinger, has a larger part in more of the songs. The production
values for the recordings were also becoming more sophisticated. The
album is split between sections of short songs on the first side with a
long multi-movement instrumental “ballet” piece for the second side.
The third “Babyfingers” movement reverts back to the short songs and
then back to a longer piece to conclude the set.
Critical
reception of the album was mostly positive with Jon Savage writing in
Sounds that they sounded like a heavily warped hybrid between “Steely
Dan” and “Frank Zappa”. Andy Gill wrote in NME that the extended
instrumental, Six Things to a Cycle, brought to mind Harry Partch. The
group were still lurking in the backwaters as independent oddballs, just
the other side of “cult” status, but they were on the verge of cracking
into more significant appreciation within the next couple of years.
Historically, Fingerprince sits alongside the rest of the early
catalogue as an essential listen from their “golden age”.
