Hunters — Original Soundtrack Recording (1995)

Out on the Milan label, this is somewhat of an oddity. Though The Residents have previously worked on Pee Wee Herman's Playhouse, and provided music for various animated projects made for MTV, this represents their most ambitious TV job to date. Hunters is a series of wildlife documentaries produced for the Discovery Channel. It's hard to judge how well the music matches the visuals, as I haven't had the opportunity to see them, but just going by the titles it'd be pretty well. I can particularly imagine this stuff playing while various horrible insectey things scurry, crawl and scuttle about (yuk!).

Taken separately, the twelve tracks here are all listenable enough and would serve admirably, and to their better advantage, as compilation fillers, slotted between more varied tracks. A whole hour of this rather similar-sounding music is a little too much to take in one sitting. If you're a fan of The Residents' soundtrack work, by all means buy this album - if you're merely curious, the 'Concentrate' on Huddled Masses tells you all you really need to know about Hunters. You'll either hate this, or you'll like it not very much. This oriental sounding instrumental could have been great but there's just something missing.