THE CENSUS TAKER
Album
| Creeping Dread |
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The Census Taker was a 1985 direct-to-video movie starring Garrett Morris, somewhere between black comedy and B-horror. The director (on Penn Jillette's recommendation) commissioned a soundtrack and score from the ever-busy Residents, who recorded twenty minutes of film music and filled the remainder of the allotted time with tracks from Commercial Album, The Tunes of Two Cities, and Intermission.
The movie was a dismal flop; the Residents themselves reportedly hated it but were quite satisfied with their contribution.
RATING: 6
Even if you didn't know, you'd have pegged this one as a patchwork affair. Still, I was all set to tell you that The Census Taker didn't hang together. That simply isn't the case. I don't know what, if anything, the Residents had to do with the sequencing of this record, but it works really, really well in that regard.Who'd've thought of putting "End of Home" (Commercial Album) back-to-back with "The Secret Seed" (Tunes of Two Cities)? Brilliant.
Sequencing, however, only goes so far when the material's not that great. And, except for "Lights Out," the stunning overture from The Mole Show, it's second-tier Residents. That includes the new material, the film score; it sounds like Vileness Fats Junior. There are two memorable pieces from the score. One, "The Census Taker," is memorable because it's great. The other, "HELLno," is memorable because it's stolen bodily from the jingle from JELL-O. (Oh, I suppose "Where Is She?" is pretty good, but not really memorable...although the version from 13th Anniversary Show is.) The rest isn't bad: it's pretty dark ambient music, and some of it really complex, but none of it really commands your attention at all.
You'd think, looking at it, that The Census Taker would be a great showcase for the Residents. And, with songs from Commercial Album, Tunes of Two Cities, and Intermission, PLUS new instrumentals, you'd be perfectly right to think so...until you heard it. The Census Taker ends up as a nice enough addition to the Residents' library, but not something you'd pull out more than every now and then. Even with the CD, which just puts the new stuff after Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats?, I usually don't make it through to The Census Taker.
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