''The Tunes of Two Cities'' is an album by American

art rock Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that generally reflects a challenging or avant-garde approach to rock, or which makes use of modernist, experimental, or unconventional elements. Art rock aspires to elevate rock from entertainment to an art ...

group

The Residents The Residents are an American art collective and art rock band best known for their avant-garde music and multimedia works. Since their first official release, ''Meet the Residents'' (1974), they have released over 60 albums, numerous music vi ...

, released in 1982. It is part two of the ''Mole Trilogy''. Rather than forwarding the story of the battle between the Mole People and the Chubs, the record's concept is to display the differences between the two cultures through their music. The music of the Chubs is light cocktail jazz, while that of the Moles tends toward industrial hymns. A major feature of this album is that it was one of the first to use the

E-mu Emulator The Emulator is a series of digital sampling synthesizers using floppy disk storage, manufactured by E-mu Systems from 1981 until 2002. Though not the first commercial sampler, the Emulator was among the first to find wide use among ordinary m ...

, one of the earliest commercial digital samplers. The Chub track "Mousetrap" bears a noticeable resemblance to

Stan Kenton Stanley Newcomb Kenton (December 15, 1911 – August 25, 1979) was an American popular music and jazz artist. As a pianist, composer, arranger and band leader, he led an innovative and influential jazz orchestra for almost four decades. Though K ...

's "Eager Beaver." In one 1998 interview, band spokesman Homer Flynn acknowledged that the band listened to jazz big band artists including Kenton, as well as Charles Mingus and Sun Ra.Homer Flynn Interview
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Track listing

The 1988 CD release contains three extra tracks that were excluded from the album due to space constraints. These tracks are sequenced between "Praise for the Curse" and "The Secret Seed", restoring the alternation between "Mole" and "Chub" songs. *Open Up – 2:18 *Anvil Forest – 2:22 *Scent of Mint – 2:27

2019 pREServed edition (''Mole Box'')

A deluxe box set pertaining to the entire Mole Trilogy concept was released in 2019. It contained newly remastered editions of ''

Mark of the Mole ''Mark of the Mole'' is an album by American art rock group The Residents, released in 1981 on Ralph Records. The first in what was intended to be a "trilogy" (of six albums) with a narrative centred on a conflict between two rival peoples, the M ...

'', ''The Tunes of Two Cities'' and ''

The Big Bubble ''The Big Bubble'' is an album released by American art rock group The Residents in 1985. The album is presented as the debut of fictional garage rock band "the Big Bubble", composed of four "Cross" band members – "Cross" being the resulting mi ...

'', as well as recordings of the Mole Show and a sixth disc of miscellaneous recordings related to the project. Disc Two is shown here for its relevance.

Personnel

The Residents: Performance

Snakefinger Philip Charles Lithman (17 June 1949 – 1 July 1987), who performed under the stage name Snakefinger, was an English musician, singer and songwriter. A multi-instrumentalist, he was best known for his guitar and violin work and his collab ...

: Guitar Nessie Lessons: Vocals Norman Salant: Saxophone

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tunes of Two Cities, The The Residents albums 1982 albums Concept albums Ralph Records albums