Well August 15th was a sad day for lovers of strange avant-garde music.
Independent label Ralph America, distributor of many releases of the enigmatic group The Residents, "closed its doors" for good. The label's reasons were simply that it is becoming nearly impossible to compete with the free distribution of it's releases. The regular physical copies of Ralph's releases has all but ceased. The reality sunk in when, prior to the closing, the label cleaned out its closets with sales on items from its back catalog and archives which had been unavailable for some time.
There are a few silver linings to this dark cloud however. Not all hope is lost dear Eyeball heads. Most of the essential discography of the Residents has slowly been re-released in special CD editions from Mute Records. Classics like Eskimo, The Third Reich N' Roll, and Duck Stab have been remastered and each comes housed in 32 page hardcover book with extensive liner notes and photographs.
Also while Ralph as a label no longer exists The Cryptic Corporation will still offer a shopping opportunity for fans in the form of downloads and "On Demand CDs" in some cases of future self releases by The Residents. How long these releases remain available is up to The Residents. The Cryptic Corporation also offer links to any other companies and labels that carry their releases on The Residents' site. So things may seem grim but with a catalog as daunting as that of The Residents it seems unlikely that there will be a dearth of their recordings. While they couldn't keep their label active this hardly means that they will stop creating challenging, theatrical and as always strange music.
For more information on the Residents: Their Site http://residents.com/
A decent fan blog Rez World
And of course various minutia can be found on Wikipedia.org and Allmusic.com
-St(i)les
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