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No question about it: there has never been a band as determinedly warped as the Residents. Over the course of a career now deep into its third decade, the quirky quartet have never revealed their names or their faces. But what they have shown, aside from a predilection for titles like "Duck Stab" and "Santa Dog," is a consistently unique and compelling musical and especially visual sensibility. It's all here in Icky Flix, an extraordinarily comprehensive DVD that brings together some 17 pieces spanning the group's career, from 1976's "The Third Reich 'n' Roll" to recent items like "Burn Baby Burn" and "Bad Day on the Midway." And not only is there visual content galore--in 2000 they also rerecorded the music for almost every piece, with users given the choice of listening to either the original or the new track. (The new versions are a little smoother and better produced, but essentially the same--i.e., dissonant, jarring, strange, a bit like Captain Beefheart without the Delta blues flavor, referencing everything from "We Are the World," "Holy Holy Holy," and "Wipe Out" to James Brown and John Philip Sousa.) The visuals defy literal description, as the Residents and their various directors undertake a dazzling multimedia journey, combining film, video, still photography, computer animation, and more to create images that range from dark, surreal, and grotesque to funny, endearingly wacky, absurd, and even beautiful (it's not a bit surprising that some of this stuff now resides in New York's Museum of Modern Art). There's only one Residents--and while that may be a good thing, so is this remarkable, fascinating document. --Sam Graham
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