Part 1 - Edweena
Part 2 - The Making of a Soul
Part 3 - Ship's A' Going Down
Part 4 - Never Known Questions
Epilogue
NOT AVAILABLE
Album
| Part 1 - Edweena |
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In the mid-1970s, the Residents abandoned the Vileness Fats film, having neither the energy nor the resources to finish it. To try to work past their first creative failure, in 1974 the band made this exercise in the "Theory of Obscurity": the idea that an artist does their best work when they completely remove audiences' influence from the equation. Thus Not Available gets its name because it was intended not to be released. The Residents wouldn't permit its release until they had forgotten it existed, but their management released it anyway in 1978 to meet legal obligations stemming from the problems with the Eskimo album. The Residents did not object; after all, they hadn't decided to release it.
RATING: 9
...But damn near a 10. Not Available is lovely, haunting, melodic, atmospheric, and almost symphonic. A lot of sources refer to it as an opera, but operas tend to have plots. Not Available has characters: Edweena, her porcupine ("whose name was known as Knowledge"), and Uncle Remus. But Hell if I know what these people are doing.
The thing is that Not Available is as indescribable as it is beautiful. It's got subtle, colorful arrangements with orchestral instruments and truly awesome production. That, combined with the mystery of the libretto, and the unison "chorus" singing by the Residents, make it simply a mesmerizing experience. It's close to a tone poem, really, and the fact that it consistently uses said tones at all makes it a standout in the Residentiary backlog....
Have I said anything remotely useful? Do you have a clue what this album sounds like? No, I don't think you do. And you won't until you hear it, because I can do it no justice here. Put it this way: Not Available has been called both the best Residents album, and the strangest Residents album. There's probably something to both of those statements.