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[]
Background[]
Following their 2006 projects, the concept album Tweedles! and the serial drama The River of Crime, The Residents decided to go further in that direction. The group soon struck upon German Romantic author E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 horror story "Der Sandmann",[1] a tale of madness, cultural conflict and eyeballs; feeling that it was "a great piece to revisit/interpret", they initially conceived the project as a stage production.[2]
The group was familiar with other successful musical adaptations of Hoffman's work, and were inspired to do the same; themes related to "Der Sandmann" had appeared in The Residents' work even in their earliest recordings. However, The Cryptic Corporation were unable to fund such a production, necessitating The Residents to rework the project as a studio album.[2]
Another problem soon arose: the members of The Residents (hitherto said to share a "hive mind" mentality) had conflicting ideas on how to approach the project: some members wanted to take a purely intellectual approach, accurately dissecting the material's themes and characters. In contrast, others wanted the project to be dictated by their raw emotional reactions to the material.
The group, ultimately deciding that the problem was that they had different ideas as to how The Residents would approach the project, decided to compose the work not as The Residents (who had preconceived notions about what they should do), but under a new identity, that of an improvisational and experimental "jam band", which The Residents dubbed "The UGHS!".
Recording[]
The newly-founded UGHS! (aided by The Residents' frequent collaborator Nolan Cook) set to work composing and recording music for the project, casting the story's roles with frequent and recent collaborators: Olympia (the "other woman") was portrayed by Carla Fabrizio, Clair was portrayed by Gerri Lawlor (who had recently appeared on their album Tweedles! and serial drama River of Crime), and the protagonist Nate was portrayed by Corey Rosen (who had also appeared in The River of Crime).
At the same time, The Residents were also working on a series of new tracks created from their 1994 soundtrack sessions for the Discovery Channel documentary series Hunters: The World of Predators and Prey. The resulting double album, titled Night of the Hunters, would be released four months prior to The Voice of Midnight.
Release[]
The Voice of Midnight, The Residents' third album with Mute Records, was announced in March 2007, only five months after the release of their previous album, Tweedles!. It was originally scheduled to be released in September,[3] but in May the release date was pushed back to October, so as to not clash with other Mute releases.[4]
The album's title and concept were announced in July,[4] a month after the release of the double album Night of the Hunters. On September 17th, The Voice of Midnight was made available for pre-order.[5] On October 6th, a related EP, The Sandman Waits, was announced, featuring an abridged and more light-hearted and more conventional take on The Voice of Midnight.
Despite announcements that the album would be available worldwide on October 15th, Mute again rescheduled the album's US release to November 20th,[6] with American pre-orders beginning on November 2nd.
As of December 2024, The Voice of Midnight has never been reissued, and the physical edition is long out of print, although Cherry Red Records released the album to digital streaming platforms in 2017.
Reception[]
Contemporary[]
In a mostly positive review for AllMusic, Sean Westergaard described The Voice of Midnight as "suitably dark and menacing" and noted "the addition of strings and the screaming guitar of Residents collaborator Nolan Cook", praising the "allusions to Bernard Herrmann's Psycho" in "The Sandman", "and to a Stephen Foster tune" in "True Love", while noting that "these aren't songs per se", feeling that fans might lament the "diminished role" of The Singing Resident, and concluding that the album "probably isn't the best place to start... but it's certainly interesting for fans as [The Residents] head down this new path."[7]
Independent music reviewer Mark Prindle awarded 5/10 to The Voice of Midnight shortly after its release, describing it as "intriguingly morbid but awkwardly scripted and abysmally acted" (with lead voice actor Corey Rosen singled out as the "real culprit") and The Residents' "first weak album since 1996's Have a Bad Day". While describing The Residents on this album as "essentially the back-up band for a high school musical", Prindle also reserved praise for the "catchy three-chord motif" of "The Telescope" and a "great eerie keyboard segment" near the end of "Seven Cats".[8]
Highlighting the album's "prominent use of different actors", collector and private music journalist "Grandpa Gio" summarised "Der Sandmann" as being the story of "a man who can’t accept having an intelligent woman as a partner", noting that The Residents instead chose to spotlight another facet of the story, "insanity as from the inside", while somewhat bemoaning The Residents' choice not to incorporate the source story's "explanation of who Nate's childhood Sandman really was, which compromises the theme of dual reality... Plot-wise this isn’t critical, but it does drop what is otherwise a fine echo of the motif."[9]
Retrospective[]
On AllMusic, The Voice of Midnight has an average user rating of 3.5 / 5,[7] on Discogs it has an average user rating of 3.96 / 5, and on RateYourMusic it has an average user rating of 2.98 / 5.0.
Legacy[]
Aside from the EP The Sandman Waits, The Residents produced two other releases related to The Voice of Midnight: The UGHS!, a collection of demos from the album's sessions, and Voice-Less Midnight, featuring early instrumental versions of the album and outtakes.
In 2010, "True Love" was featured on The Residents' Lost in a Vacant Lot compilation, and in 2017 "Catatonia" was featured on the retrospective box set 80 Aching Orphans. The 2019 limited edition CD Music To Eat Bricks By included a demo version of "In The Dark."
In 2016, the group's composer Charles Bobuck re-recorded "Metal Decay" for his solo Residents cover album Bobuck Plays The Residents.
Track listing[]
- 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[10]
- The Residents as The Sandman[11]
See also[]
- The UGHS!
- "Der Sandmann"
- E.T.A. Hoffmann
- "Sandman"
External links and references[]
- The Voice of Midnight on The Residents Historical
- "The Sandman" by E.T.A. Hoffmann (English translation)
- The Voice of Midnight on Mute
- The Voice of Midnight on Discogs
- The Sandman Waits EP on Discogs
- ↑ "...it's based on a short story titled "Der Sandmann" (The Sandman) written by German author E.T.A. Hoffmann. The Residents thought it was a great piece to revisit/reinterpret - maybe it will find an audience someday." Bubba Hodges, email to a wiki contributor, December 1st 2024
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "The Voice of Midnight was really written to be [a] stage production but like so many Residents projects, their fantasies easily outstrip Cryptic's ability to produce them." Bubba Hodges, email to a wiki contributor, December 1st 2024
- ↑ BOG killing readers with boredom
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Next Mute Residents album set for October
- ↑ More Eyeballs, Daddy! More Eyeballs!
- ↑ <the residents blog>
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 The Voice of Midnight at AllMusic
- ↑ Mark Prindle, "Voice of Midnight", Mark's Record Reviews, ca. November-December 2007
- ↑ Grandpa Gio, "I Know I’ll Hear You When It’s Late At Night (The Voice of Midnight)", Grandpa Gio and The Residents, December 7th 2007
- ↑ Official News Blog, July 2007
- ↑ The Residents project - Review: The Voice of Midnight - kittysneezes
