In 1979 "punk" music was all the rage. The Residents had gone though the punk stage three years earlier with the release of "Satisfaction" and were ready for anything that was not punk. They decided it was a good time to make the jump into world music, since by their own calculations it would not become popular for several more years. They scanned the map for a proper culture to exploit and, not finding one, became discouraged until seeing a large Coke sign featuring Santa Claus. Immediately they realized they had overlooked the North pole because it is made of ice and therefore didn't exist on their world map. Andy Gill of New Music Express said, "I'm not sure quite how to convey the magnitude of The Residents' achievement with Eskimo. What I am sure of it that it's without doubt one of the most important albums ever made, if not the most important, and that its implications are of such an unprecendentedly revolutionary nature that the weak-minded polemical posturing of purportedly "political" bands are positively bourgeois by comparison". He says this because the album tells the story, without relying upon words, of the assimilation of a ritualistic society into consumer culture. This story unfolds as Eskimo fables, a lived experience, set to the grinding of sound effects and music. It is a mind movie rich with detail. ESKIMO is, quite literally, a unique experience.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. The Walrus Hunt Birth
2. Arctic Hysteria
3. The Angry Angakok
4. A Spirit Steals A Child
5. The Festival Of Death