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The pREServed series is a campaign of expanded and remastered re-issues of The Residents' discography via Cherry Red Records, MVD Audio and New Ralph Too (as well as Solid Records in Japan). The series is most notable for introducing newly restored remasters of The Residents' classic albums (engineered by Scott Colburn), and the issue of a significant volume of previously unreleased and long-forgotten material from The Cryptic Corporation archive.

The pREServed campaign began in January 2018 with the release of two-disc editions of Meet The Residents and The Third Reich 'n Roll, and continues to the present day, with the most recent CD release being the three-disc edition of Demons Dance Alone in June 2024.

A vinyl subseries of pREServed releases also commenced with the first ever release of The W***** B*** Album on Record Store Day in April 2018. Following several further (mostly limited edition) vinyl releases, the subseries commenced properly in January 2023 with a three LP edition of Meet The Residents, featuring further unheard material. This was followed by a double LP Third Reich 'n Roll in February, a double LP Fingerprince in March, a double LP Duck Stab!/Buster & Glen in May, and a double LP Not Available in June. The expanded vinyl reissues of the "classic" era albums concluded on July 7th with the release of double LP editions of Eskimo and Commercial Album.

Upcoming releases in the series include the long-delayed box set The American Composers Box and an expanded CD edition of Animal Lover.

History[]

The pREServed campaign was conceived in 2017 jointly by Homer Flynn (current President of The Cryptic Corporation) with The Residents and a Cherry Red Records employee known only as The Residents' Mysterious Archivist.[1] It is in some ways a continuation of the short lived ERA series of compilations which the group had intended to release online through their Robot Selling Device in 2012 (of which only one installment, ERA B474, was ultimately released), but the general concept has precedent stretching back as far as the early Classic Series CD reissues of the group's albums in the late 1980s.

The series began in earnest following the retirement of then-President Hardy Fox from The Cryptic Corporation, when Fox had sold his share of The Cryptic Corporation to Cherry Red and MVD Audio and sent The Residents their vast archives of tapes and recorded material which he had previously overseen. The Residents' receipt of these archives led them to revisit old material which they had long forgotten, which caused them to become reflective and to want to look backwards for the first time proper.[1]

The pREServed series is ultimately intended to represent a comprehensive (if not necessarily complete) "preservation" of the vast discography of The Residents. Each major release in the series contains detailed liner notes and a considerable amount of previously unknown and unheard bonus material relevant to that time period. Most releases have been issued in roughly chronological order, although some releases have been issued well outside of their chronological order due to extenuating circumstances or by will of The Residents (ie. Not Available, A Nickle If Your Dick's This Big, The American Composers Box).

The pREServed campaign has also included three special vinyl releases (to date) on Record Store Day, including the first official release of the group's long unreleased 1971 demo tapes The W****** B*** Album and B.S., in 2018 and 2019 respectively, and the first release of the complete Icky Flix soundtrack as a double LP set in 2020. A semi-limited double LP and CD set, Eskimo Deconstructed, was also released in May 2019.

The first phase of the pREServed release campaign began in January 2018 with the release of two-disc sets of Meet The Residents and The Third Reich 'n Roll, and concluded in November 2019 with the release of a two-disc set of early recordings entitled A Nickle If Your Dick’s This Big, and an expanded reissue of Not Available containing a second disc of previously unreleased session tapes.

The second phase of the campaign began in August 2019 with the release of a three-disc God In Three Persons set, followed by the seven-disc Cube-E Box in October, three-disc Freak Show and Gingerbread Man sets in February and May 2021 respectively, and the nine-disc Wormwood Box in January 2022.

Delayed releases[]

In homage to the Theory of Obscurity which guided its creation, the group's second album Not Available was not made available for the first two years of the pREServed campaign, though it was listed as part of the series in the liner notes to Eskimo and Commercial Album (albeit crossed out) and had even been designated a catalogue number, NRT007. The pREServed edition of Not Available was finally released in November 2019, alongside the 1971-1972 compilation set A Nickle If Your Dick's This Big.

The American Composers Box was originally expected for release around 2019, but has been repeatedly delayed, initially due to trouble the group were having in finding one unspecified element within the archives, and later due to rights issues surrounding "one key element" of the set.[2] The box set is now being finalized for release in 2024.

Expanded editions of Demons Dance Alone and Animal Lover were initially planned for release in 2023,[3] but are now expected for release in 2024.[4]

Releases[]

CD releases[]

Vinyl releases[]

Upcoming and expected releases[]

See also[]

External links and references[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 "The Residents' Mysterious Archivist" interview at One Quart Magazine, March 2018
  2. "It will be 5CD or 6CD I think, including demos, possibly two generations of those even. Almost done, we're just waiting to hear the final running order. There'll be a 2LP set too, as far as I know. ETA November(ish)". - Richard 'Cherry Red' Anderson, June 19th, 2021
  3. 3.0 3.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named :2
  4. Richard Anderson, "pREServing The Residents", Cherry Red Records blog, August 24th 2023
  5. 5.0 5.1 "[The American Composers Box is] still 'in the works' - all compiled but... [complicated]. I think DDA and Animal Lover will come first now." Richard Anderson, comment in The Residents unofficial Facebook group, September 7th 2023
  6. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/520640660773273603/782306797280428102/image0.png
  7. "Greetings Eyeball Fans!", Cherry Red Residents mailing list newsletter, April 28th 2023
  8. Post to The Residents' official Facebook page, September 16th 2023
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