The Voice of Midnight is the thirty-first studio album by The Residents. It is a musical adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's novella "Der Sandmann," released October 15th 2007 in Europe, and November 20th 2007 in America, by Mute Records.
The project's instrumental score would later be accredited to a conceptual side-group, The UGHS!, whose self-titled album released in 2009.
History[]
Recording[]
Following from the dark narratives of Tweedles! and The River of Crime, The Residents felt the need to go further in that general direction. They decided to adapt E.T.A. Hoffmann's "Der Sandmann," an 1816 short story about madness, cultural conflict, and, most notably to The Residents, eyeballs into a concept album. The group was familiar with other successful musical adaptions of Hoffman's work and were inspired to do the same, especially since themes related to "The Sandman" had appeared in their work since their early recordings.
But a problem soon arose. For the first time in their careers, the group had very different ideas on approaching the project. Some wanted to take a purely intellectual approach to the material, accurately dissecting its themes and characters. In contrast, others wanted the project to be dictated by their raw emotional reactions to the material. They realised that the problem was that they had different ideas as to how The Residents would approach scoring the project, and so, decided to compose the adaption's score not as The Residents, who had preconceived notions about what they should do, but instead under a new identity, The UGHS!
The new group, with Carla Fabrizio and Nolan Cook, immediately began work on writing music for future adaption into the score, and feverishly worked on the it night and day until the instrumental was completed.[1] Afterwards, they began casting for the roles in the album out of people who had already worked with them. The role of Olympia was portrayed by Carla Fabrizio, Clair was portrayed by Gerri Lawlor, (from their Tweedles album and River of Crime podcast) and the protagonist, Nate, was portrayed by Corey Rosen, (From The River of Crime.)[2] Concurrently with these sessions, the group were also working on their dark ambient re-recording of their 1995 Hunters album, titled Night of the Hunters, which released four months prior to Voice of Midnight.
Release[]
The Residents' third Mute Records album was announced in March of 2007, only five months after the release of Tweedles. It was scheduled to be released in September[3] but was pushed back to October in May to not clash with other Mute releases.[4] The concept and title of the album were announced in July,[4] a month after the release of their 31st studio album, Night of the Hunters.
On September 17th, the album was made available for pre-order.[5] On October 6th The Sandman Waits EP was announced, (named after their 1971 song, Sandman), an abridged and more light-hearted and more conventional take on The Voice of Midnight.
Despite announcements that the album would be made available worldwide on October 15th, Mute had re-scheduled the album's US release to November 20th,[6] with American pre-orders starting on November 2nd.
The album has never been re-released and is currently out of print, although Cherry Red Records released the album digitally in 2017.
Legacy[]
As well as The Sandman Waits, The Residents produced two other releases related to The Voice of Midnight, The UGHS!, a collection of its original demos, and The Voiceless Midnight, collecting early instrumental versions of the album and outtakes.
In 2010, "True Love" was featured on The Residents' Lost in a Vacant Lot best of album, in 2016, Charles Bobuck re-recorded "Metal Decay" for his album Bobuck Plays The Residents, and in 2017 "Catatonia" was feautred on the 80 Aching Orphans best of. In 2019, Music To Eat Bricks By featured a demo version of "In The Dark."
On Discogs, the album has a 3.96 / 5 rating and on RateYourMusic it has a 2.95 / 5.0 rating.
Track listing[]
The Voice of Midnight
- Scene 1 (The Sandman) (8:33)
- Scene 2 (Mental Decay) (2:56)
- Scene 3 (Claire's Response) (3:23)
- Scene 4 (In The Dark) (3:12)
- Scene 5 (Professor Caligari) (1:25)
- Scene 6 (The Telescope) (5:53)
- Scene 7 (True Love) (11:06)
- Scene 8 (Seven Cats) (6:45)
- Scene 9 (Catatonia) (2:52)
- Scene 10 (The Proposal) (5:27)
- Scene 11 (The Tower) (5:44)
- Scene 12 (Epilogue) (3:11)
Credits[]
- Corey Rosen, Gerri Lawler, Carla Fabrizio & The Residents In: The Voice Of Midnight
- Book & Music By: The Residents
- Produced By: The Cryptic Corporation
- Based On: Der Sandman by E.T.A Hoffman
- Music Performed By: The Residents
- Soloist: Nolan Cook (Electric Guitar)
- Strings: Carla Fabrizio
- Engineer: Kevin Ink
- Published By: Pale Pachyderm Publishing (BMI)
- Executive Producer: Robert Schilling for Mute.
Cast[]
- Corey Rosen as Nate
- Gerri Lawler as Clair
- Carla Fabrizio as Olympia[2]
- The Residents as The Sandman[7]
See also[]
External links and references[]
- The Voice of Midnighton The Residents Historical
- "The Sandman" by E.T.A. Hoffmann (English translation)
- The Voice of Midnighton Mute
- The Voice of Midnighton Discogs
- The Sandman Waitson Discogs
- ↑ The Voice of Midnight - Historical - The Residents
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Official News Blog, July 2007
- ↑ BOG killing readers with boredom
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Next Mute Residents album set for October
- ↑ More Eyeballs, Daddy! More Eyeballs!
- ↑ <the residents blog>
- ↑ The Residents project - Review: The Voice of Midnight - kittysneezes