Mole Suite

***Mole Suite*** is a sixteen-minute suite by The Residents, consisting of a selection of mostly instrumental sketches which are thought to date from the late 1980s and early 1990s, when The Residents decided to revisit the themes of their unfinished six-part Mole Trilogy series for reasons which have never been explained in detail.

It was released digitally via the group's Robot Selling Device on September 1st 2011. It has not been reissued to date, however the suite's closing piece "Marching To The We" was featured separately on the pREServed six-disc box set *Mole Box* in 2019.

## History

*Mole Suite* contains pieces of music which have often been thought to originate from sessions for the unfinished Part Three of The Residents' incomplete Mole Trilogy project in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was given the *Mole Suite* title by The Residents' webmaster Big Brother (who "(didn't) know what else to call it"), shortly prior to the suite's release through the group's music download store Robot Selling Device in September 2011.

The suite is mostly comprised of instrumental pieces which feature melodic motifs from earlier instalments in the trilogy. Despite this, the pieces of music comprising the *Mole Suite* were evidently recorded later than the sessions for the incomplete third part of the trilogy, which are thought to have taken place in the mid-1980s.

Two pieces included in the suite had been released previously; the instrumental "Tired Old Man" had been featured on the compilation *Best Left Unspoken... Volume One* in 2006, and "Marching To The We" had been released on The Residents' official blog in June 2008 as part of the Summer Tunes series of free MP3s (under the joke title "Marching To The Beach").

It has been variously indicated that "Tired Old Man" both does and does not belong to sessions for the unfinished Part Three of The Mole Trilogy; while the liner notes to *Best Left Unspoken...* claim that it is an excerpt from Part Three, Hardy Fox later suggested that it was an unrelated piece which was given this name by the group as a kind of in-joke. "Marching To The We" would later feature in a short sequence of tracks on the sixth disc of the 2019 pREServed box set *Mole Box,* which the liner notes claim "may or may not" originate from the sessions for the third instalment in the trilogy.

Only two pieces of the suite are known to have been released previously: "Tired Old Man" (previously featured on *Best Left Unspoken... Volume 1* in 2006) and "Marching To The We", previously released as part of the free MP3 download series Summer Tunes in June 2008). Aside from "Marching To The We", none of the remaining pieces included in the suite appear on *Mole Box*.

## Track listing

1. Mole Suite (16:29)
	* Happy Home instrumental variation (0:50)
	* Instrumental (0:50)
	* Voices of the Air instrumental variation (0:54)
	* Back To Normality? instrumental variation (0:34)
	* Tired Old Man (0:52)
	* Rumors instrumental variation (2:26)
	* The Observer instrumental variation (2:39)
	* Migration (March To The Sea) (2:08)
	* Marching To The We (5:25)

## Release notes

"Just one of those oddities. Mole Suite, named by me because I don't know what else to call it... Age unknown, but probably late Eighties, early Nineties."
Big Brother, *Mole Suite* release notes, 2011

## See also

* Part Three of The Mole Trilogy
* *Best Left Unspoken... Volume One*
* Summer Tunes
* The Mole Trilogy
* Robot Selling Device
* *Mole Box*

## External links and references

* *Mole Suite* at Discogs

1. ↑ *Best Left Unspoken... Volume One* liner notes, 2006

**Cast of Characters**
Mohelmot · Chubs (Innisfree · The Scientist) · The ObserverDarkness · The Evil DisposerCross (Zinkenites · Kula Bocca · The Big Bubble · Frankie DuVall)
**Part One: *Mark of the Mole* (1981)**
(video game · novel)
**Side A: Hole-Workers at the Mercy of Nature**
"Voices of the Air" · "The Ultimate Disaster" · "Migration"
**Side B: Hole-Workers vs. Man and Machine**
"Another Land" · "The New Machine" · "Final Confrontation"
**Part Two: *The Tunes of Two Cities* (1982)**
(*The Comix of Two Cities*)
**Side A:** "Serenade For Missy" · "A Maze Of Jigsaws" · "Mousetrap" · "God Of Darkness" · "Smack Your Lips (Clap Your Teeth)" · "Praise For The Curse"
**Side B:** "The Secret Seed" · "Smokebeams" · "Mourning The Undead" · "Song Of The Wild" · "The Evil Disposer" · "Happy Home (Excerpt From Act II of "Innisfree")"
***Intermission: Extraneous Music From The Residents' Mole Show* (1982)**
**Side A:** "Lights Out (Prelude)" · "Shorty's Lament (Intermission)"
**Side B:** "The Moles Are Coming (Intermission)" · "Would We Be Alive? (Intermission)" · "The New Hymn (Recessional)"
**The Mole Show (1982-1983)**(*Mole Dance 82* · *Live At The Roxy* · *La Edad de Oro* · Uncle Sam Mole Show · VHS · *Live In Holland* · DVD bag set)
**Part Three: ???**
"Now It Is Too Late" · "Going Nowhere" · "Tired Old Man" · "Marching To The We" · ***Mole Suite***
**Part Four: *The Big Bubble* (1985)**(fictional band · Black Shroud Records)
**Side A:** "Sorry" · "Hop A Little" · "Go Where Ya Wanna Go" · "Gotta Gotta Get" · "Cry For The Fire"
**Side B:** "Die-Stay-Go" · "Vinegar" · "Firefly" · "The Big Bubble" · "Fear for the Future" · "Kula Bocca Says So"
**Part Five: ???**
**Part Six: ???**
**Related works**
"Open Up" · "Anvil Forest" · The 10th Anniversary Show (*Assorted Secrets*) · *PAL TV LP* · The 13th Anniversary Show · *Mole Box: The Complete Mole Trilogy pREServed* ("From MOM1" · "Untitled" · "Jingle Bell" · "Another Another Land")
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