recent obsession: arthur russell

He makes it soooooo easy. When someone is this good at this many things — and things so wide-ranging in scope, you can’t help but be shocked in spite of yourself — it’s damn near impossible not to tumble down the rabbit hole.

The Arthur Russell story is well-chronicled amongst music obsessives, the gist being: quiet Iowan cellist moves to New York, takes the downtown scene by storm with his eccentric, virtuosic take on everything from avant-classical to leftfield disco to folk to no-wave. He works occasionally behind-the-scenes (endlessly tweaking and twiddling longform dance singles under pseudonyms like Loose Joints and Indian Ocean) and often front-and-center (most affectingly on the World of Echo tapes, which are stark: just Russell’s cello and vocals, heavily processed).

It’s a compelling body of work, even just to an appreciator of things; even viewed through the myriad non-musical prisms Russell touched: art, theater, experimental culture. The music, though, more than impressing people (which it tends to do no matter what), has the capacity to be loved by almost everyone. Not an easy task for an experimental composer at heart.

Some key, errr… keys to Arthur Russell accesibility:

Breadth: If you don’t love the wonky, wobbly, crisp disco of 24-24 Music or “Is It All Over My Face?“, chances are you will love the sometimes-hushed, sometimes-rollicking country-folk of Love is Overtaking Me. If not, then surely a record of mysterious and toweringly beautiful just-cello-and-vocals. Or the sample-heavy, weird rock-not-rock of Calling Out of Context. You see where I’m goin’ with this.

Tone: This stuff, as off-kilter as it can seem at times, still sounds great to this day. I really think Russell’s vocals are an overlooked element of his appeal/greatness. He has this incredible timbre (kind of shooting in the dark here in the land of technical-ness) — like he’s somehow singing from the top of his mouth. It’s got a sticky, resonant, very expressive and, dare I say… emotional tone.

Singularness: Clunky, I know. But seriously, even the diggin-est of all diggers would be hard pressed to find anyone who does it quite like Arthur. It’s the amalgamation of source material, songwriting quirk, odd instrumentation and plain old obsessive tinkering: 1,000,000 monkeys working 1,000,000 years couldn’t…

Of course there’s the myth (new/newly unearthed material is regularly being compiled these days), but really at the heart of it: this is wholly unique, wholly engaging, inspired and inspiring music. As for where to start… if you ask me, anywhere, really:

Arthur Russell on eMusic
Dinosaur L on eMusic