Album: The Residents <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

The Residents Present Tweedles!, MUTE

Recorded at the invitation of a rich Romanian fan in his new studio, Tweedles! is The Residents' idea of a vampire story: not the bloodsucking kind, but a ruthless lover who preys on innocent souls - a sexual predator who also happens to be a clown called Tweedles. But of course. The result is a psychodrama of sexual compulsion that doesn't baulk at the psychopathic connotations of Tweedles's lack of empathy (he fantasises about being a serial killer; lest we forget, John Wayne Gacy worked as a children's clown entertainer), although its unflinching darkness may render it even tougher to engage with than previous Residents albums. The warped, otherworldly tone of their music, with its peculiar dialectical conflicts of comedy, tragedy and horror, is perfectly in keeping with such material; it's augmented here by locally recorded Romanian street musicians, church bells and even a travelling circus, and there are bleakly hysterical interjections by the Film Orchestra of Bucharest. Uneasy listening - and that's without even considering the risqué sleeve design...

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Mark of the Male', 'Stop Signs', 'Life'