Eskimo Folk Tales [10" Vinyl EP]

Eskimo Folk Tales returns The Residents to the world of their landmark Eskimo project through six newly recorded pieces rooted in material first encountered during the album's original development. In the 1970s, the group's mentor, The Mysterious N. Senada, sent them a collection of handwritten Inuit folk tales with the suggestion that they be incorporated into the record, but the stories were ultimately set aside after the band had already assembled more than enough material of its own.

Nearly five decades later, The Residents revived those tales for a forthcoming live interpretation of Eskimo, combining familiar elements from the original album with newly composed music. The result is not presented as a lost side of Eskimo, but as a modern exploration of ideas that might, in another version of events, have found a place within the original work.

This studio recording preserves the new songs created for the performance and pairs them with read-along stories based on the texts transcribed by Senada. The project extends The Residents' long-standing interest in invented ethnography, theatrical narrative, and experimental sound while reconnecting with one of the most distinctive works in their catalog.

Presented as a 10-inch release, Eskimo Folk Tales includes individual story texts and the bonus track "The Arctic Fox." The complete program features "The Barren Woman and the Worm," "The Old Woman and the Skull," "A Tale of Two Tupilaqs," "The Fool Who Made Friends with a Stone," "The Skeleton at the Bottom of the Sea," and "The Arctic Fox."

Track Listing

    The Barren Woman and the Worm

    The Old Woman and the Skull

    A Tale of Two Tupilaqs

    The Fool Who Made Friends with a Stone

    The Skeleton at the Bottom of the Sea

    The Arctic Fox (Bonus Track)