The Residents

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About The Residents

Over the course of a recording career spanning more than half a century, the Residents have remained a riddle of Sphinx-like proportions. Cloaking their lives and music in a haze of willful obscurity, the band's members never identified themselves by name, always appearing in public in disguise. The Residents famously refuse to grant media interviews, though "representatives of the Cryptic Corporation," the business entity behind the group, would sometimes speak on their behalf. Drawing inspiration from the likes of fellow innovators including Harry Partch, Sun Ra, and Captain Beefheart, the Residents channeled the breadth of American music into their idiosyncratic, satiric vision, their mercurial blend of electronics, distortion, avant-jazz, classical symphonies, and gratingly nasal vocals reinterpreting everyone from John Philip Sousa to James Brown while simultaneously expanding the boundaries of theatrical performance and multimedia interaction.

ORIGIN
Shreveport, LA, United States
FORMED
1966
GENRE
Alternative

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