Residents

Residents – Six Things To A Cycle

(included on the album “Fingerprice”, Ralph, 1970)

Among the most bizarre creatures born in the city of San Francisco – homeland of so much American psychedelia – are certainly the Residents, one of the most obscure bands in the history of rock, capable of turning the dreams of the hippie generation into apocalyptic depictions of catastrophic futures. By 1977 – the year “Fingerprice” was released – the group had already thoroughly developed both their theory of darkness and the concept of de-evolution (an idea equal and opposite to Darwinian evolution) with their debut Ep “Santa Dog” (1972) and with the Lps “Meet The Residents” (1974) and “Not Available”, recorded in 1974 but released only in 1978. While these three albums had already produced various reference tracks exploring the devolution wrought by consumerism/capitalism, the theory of darkness, and a vision of the future opposite to that of previous generations (no longer the 1950s-60s idea of progress steadily improving society's wellbeing, but rather a future seen as a long road leading to inevitable scenes of destruction), with “Six Things To A Cycle” the Residents give us the soundtrack to devolution itself, the definitive suite of human involution, tracing an anthropological path – divided into six parts – that begins with the genesis of the human race (primitive man not yet “contaminated” by the rules of capitalism), moves through “consumer” man, post-man, and their inevitable end. An end that – this time – is not a “new beginning”, but a tombstone over every human aspiration.

The message of this grotesque suite is that human devolution is already underway, that its course is inevitable, and that nothing can stop it. The Residents offer one of the most lucid — and consequently most ignored — readings of modern society, of a mankind incapable of any vision of the common good, transformed into a demented automaton compulsively hunting for new products that might soothe — for a few brief moments — his anxiety and grant him fleeting instants of serenity (while awaiting the next object of desire, already looming).

The suite opens with its first movement, depicting primitive man, free and still in touch with nature. We hear the sounds of forests, trees, birdsong, human cries that recall the cave-rock of Cromagnon. Above all, it's a grand percussion suite that winks at one of Edgar Varèse's masterpieces, the monumental work for thirteen percussionists, "Ionisation". The idea that primitive societies are the only ones untainted by modernity, by the pervasiveness of money that destroys relationships between people, would later be picked up again on the celebrated "Eskimo" (1979), a phenomenal work of anthropology and musique concrète that depicts the life and customs of the Inuit people through the benevolent eyes of someone who knows that not even the frozen Arctic can hold back the unstoppable tide of modern capitalism's rules. The evolution continues in the second movement with the entrance of more "evolved" instruments, particularly horns and piano, but the road to dehumanization is a very short one.

From the third movement onward, a bizarre synthesizer enters, picking up the previous theme but "regressing" the sound into a simple childish jingle, with percussion turning mechanical and repetitive, almost robotic, as if to mark a further step in an evolution that is about to turn into devolution.

In the fourth movement, devolution is complete, though not yet at its peak; the mood turns funereal, and human voices obsessively repeat — picking up the same rhythm as the earlier percussion — "chew chew gum chew gum gum chew chew". These are the words of a man now stupefied by advertising and consumerism, with no chance left of recovering. Chewing gum becomes the emblem of the pointlessness of the modern market's relentless drive to overproduce. Here too there's a strong link to the Inuit of "Eskimo", who — amid the terrifying gusts of Arctic wind — begin to fall under the spell of consumerism's promises of well-being, chanting phrases in unison like "Money, Money, Money" or "Coca Cola Is Life! Coca Cola Is Life!". A sign, on one hand, of the Residents' irony, and on the other, of their distrust of the human race, inexorably condemned to an endless descent into devolution, even in its most primitive and isolated form of civilization. The only clear future on the horizon is an extinction as inevitable as it is deserved.

Devolution becomes final, reaching its zenith, in the fifth movement. The synthesizers conjure gusts of dark notes that catapult us into a grotesque, sickly cabaret atmosphere, an obscene ballet for dehumanized automatons, brain-dead men who watch — in a bare theatre — the grim, filthy spectacle of ghastly "mummified" dancers. This is the peak of the Residents' ideas and pessimism, the point in this suite where their lucidity reaches its height.

The sixth and final movement closes with an Eastern-tinged dirge that perhaps aims to parody a surreal celebration for the birth of "new man" — a man, however, who has no future ahead of him whatsoever. It's a humor that is raw and bitter, yet at the same time lucid and self-aware.

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24/03/2026