The Residents are an American art collective best known for avant-garde music and multimedia works. Since their first official release, Meet the Residents (1974), the group has released over sixty albums, numerous music videos and short films, three CD-ROM projects, and ten DVDs. They have undertaken seven major world tours and scored multiple films. Pioneers in exploring the potential of CD-ROM and similar technologies, the Residents have won several awards for their multimedia projects.

In October 2016, The Residents released Rushing Like a Banshee, the first single off their next album, alongside a video directed by John Sanborn. It was announced later found that it was part of a longer piece on The Ghost of Hope. In early 2017, they announced a new show, titled In Between Dreams, was to premier at the Blue Note in Tokyo, the first show in Japan since the 13th Anniversary Show. Rather than "Randy", "Bob" and "Rico", the show was to feature "The Real Residents", the "original" group featuring four members, much like their earlier years. Three of the members wore blue and white checkered suits, plague doctor masks with dark lenses and white bowler hats while the singer wore a cow-pattern bodysuit with a fake cow nose and plastic horns. Two shows were to be played over the course of two days, and later the same show was to be played at the Safe as Milk festival in the Wales. The show in the Wales, however, never happened as the festival was cancelled in early April. Later, in March 2017, they announced the tour to officially begin in Copenhagen, Denmark, in November 2017. Less than a week after the premiere of In Between Dreams, on March 24, 2017, the group released their first album in over 4 years, The Ghost of Hope. The album, based around historical train wrecks from the late 19th century and early 20th century, featured guest players such as Eric Drew Feldman ("who has worked with everybody cool") and Nolan Cook. The album gained large media attention, with notable magazines like Billboard and Wired covering the album shortly before its release. Several months later, in late October 2017, the full In Between Dreams tour kicked off in Copenhagen, featuring the same cast and decorations as the Tokyo show, though with a substantially changed setlist that included preview tracks from an upcoming blues-styled album: "Die! Die! Die!" and "Tell Me." In Between Dreams was the first show featuring the "Real Residents"; Tyrone, the singer, Eekie, the guitarist, Eekie, the keyboardist, and a new member, Cha Cha, a percussionist (the first in the band since "Carlos'" departure.) The decoration of the show consisted of a blue and white checkered (with the iconic eyeball with the top hat breaking the pattern every so often) backdrop, several dynamic and color changing lights, and the same giant ball screen from Shadowland for displaying videos in between every couple songs. The videos consisted of various well-known figures reminiscing of dreams they had; Richard Nixon's dream about being a blues singer, John Wayne's nightmare about a lone ballerina that disappears when he attempts to approach her, Mother Theresa's dream about a train wreck, and so on. The tour ran through Europe from late October all the way to the end of November 2017, and later the United States from early April to early May 2018.

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Did they release any music the following year or premiere in things?