Forty Minutes Of Arthur Russell

Firstly I should probably admit to being in no way an expert on Arthur Russell. I've got various tracks and a handful of albums but don't feel like I've done much more than scratched the surface of his music and on top of that I always feel with Russell's music there's something unknowable about it, something just out of reach. Sometimes it feels like his songs drift by like they've been caught by the breeze. I often feel like I'm slightly out of step when listening to them- but when they hit though, when the penny drops, they have a deep impact. 

Arthur was a cellist, producer, singer and songwriter from Iowa who moved to New York in the mid- 70s and became very much a part of the Manhattan avant garde scene and then New York's disco world. He recorded dance music as Dinosaur L and moved in circles with Peter Gordon, Talking Heads, Allen Ginsburg and Nicky Siano. He released only two albums during his lifetime- 1983's Tower Of Meaning (an orchestral piece) and 1986's weird and wonderful World Of Echo (cello and voice, dub disco and acres of space and echo) plus an album as Dinosaur L 24- 24. Arthur died in 1992 from AIDS related illnesses. In the years since his death a series of albums have been released, putting more and more previously unheard Arthur Russell songs out into the world and his reputation and influence have grown and grown. 2004's Calling Out Of Context is as good a place to start with the posthumous releases along with The World Of Arthur Russell from the same year. 

This mix is based on my incomplete knowledge of Arthur's music and isn't much more than some of my favourites thrown together in an order that seemed pleasing. 

Forty Minutes Of Arthur Russell

• A Little Lost
• In The Light Of A Miracle
• Time Away
• Calling Out Of Context
• See Through Love
• In The Corn Belt (Larry Levan Mix)
• I Like You!
• That's Us- Wild Combination
• Let's Go Swimming

A Little Lost jumps in with Arthur singing 'I'm a little lost/ Without You/ That could be an understatement...' accompanied by his cello and warm, wobbly echo. It came out on the posthumous album Another Thought, the first recordings released after his death in 1993 and is a good scene setter for Arthur's music- all those weird, non- obvious qualities that make his songs so unique. See Through Love is from the same album, a song that bubbles and echoes, as if recorded underwater. 

In The Light Of A Miracle was another unreleased during his lifetime track, one that came out on Philip Glass's insistence on Another Thought. It was a Loft classic (David Mancuso's NY invite only underground dance party/ space) and has been remixed various times to transcendent effect. The version here is the original mix, a shapeshifting, otherworldly piece of music, impossible to pin down, floating in some space between avant garde, disco dub and house- while sounding like none of those. 

Time Away is from Love Is Overtaking Me, a record that is an outlier in the Russell catalogue- no jazz inflected disco or avant garde cello and space experiments but more traditional songs, just voice and acoustic guitar. Time Alone is minimal and naive, a song about tidying up his room, Modern Lovers indebted perhaps. 'I'm taking time away/ To dream'.

Calling Out Of Context is a collection of songs Arthur recored between 1985 and 1990, released in 2004 and containing some of his most brilliant work- the title track blends voice, percussion, guitar and keys and boundless experimentation to create something really special. That's Us- Wild Combination is from the same record, a joyous anthem with Jennifer Warnes sharing vocals. It seems to me that one of the main presences on these tracks, the main sounds, is New York, the spaces and rooms and spirit of the world he lived in. I Like You! is also from Calling Out Of Context, a strange and murky stew, electronics, cello, percussion and voice. 

In The Corn Belt was one of Arthur's Dinosaur L tracks, NY dance music remixed by Larry Levan, the man who DJed for a decade at Paradise Garage, splicing dub and disco, hugely influential and pioneering post- disco/ pre- house scene, playing records on turntables with live synths and drum machines. 

Let's Go Swimming is the final song on World Of Echo, a short and simple meditation and a totally unconventional marriage of cello, folk/ disco, tape delay and voice-

'To the north part of it
The country I was made to
Cause were you been I go
That's where you'll always go
I'm banging on your door
Up in the big blue sky
When you let the water in'

V.A. Saturday

I'm trying to avoid making this Saturday series just a succession of compilations on Soul Jazz Records but since the 1990s they have become the standard setting label in many ways with what must be close to definitive various artist compilations in reggae, dub, ska, rocksteady, disco, kraut, acid, soul and funk. There are two post- punk compilations on Soul Jazz which came out at a time when sharp, angular, mutant funk/ noise was a big influence on new bands - one was the 2002 compilation In The Beginning There Was Rhythm, an eleven song gold standard compilation that I'll save for another Saturday. It was followed in 2003 by a sixteen song double vinyl/ single CD of late 70s/ early 80s music from New York, a compilation called New York Noise. As a document and round up of that scene it seems pretty comprehensive (although Lydia Lynch is missing) but it shows the influence of those artists on early 21st century hip hop, dance music, electroclash and disco- post- punk/ disco, groups like LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, all those bands that came through in the wake of The Strokes. 

New York Noise isn't always pretty or easy listening. It's intense and experimental and at times smells like damp basements, poppers and dry ice- but it always moves, its always invigorating and its always wants to tell you something is happening. As dance music it sometimes feels like its for the head as much as the feet. It definitely feels arty, the sort of music where you find people who are dressed interestingly- that's a good thing by the way- and that kind of thing can always topple into posing, but there's a time and place for posing and New York between 1979 and 1982 may be exactly that time and place. 

Across the seventy one minutes and sixteen tracks you get familiar punk- funk names- James Chance and The Contortions, The Bush Tetras, ESG, Mars, Theoretical Girls, Konk, DNA, and Defunkt. You also get this by Glenn Branca, a hugely influential wall of electric guitars and the power of repetition (a fundamental part of Sonic Youth's inspiration).

Lesson No. 1(For Electric Guitar)

There's also this by Dinosaur L from 1982, supremely funky and, yes, angular, sounds from Arthur Russell and Peter Gordon, a juddering post- punk bassline, sax and tape FX voices looped, rushing by in and out of time 

Clean On Your Bean

New York Noise opens with Liquid Liquid's Optimo, the title track from an EP that gave hip hop and early rap it's bassline in White Lines. By way of closing the circle Glasgow's Optimo, named after the track, did their own edit of Optimo, doubling the length and turning it up- cowbell, atonal sax, rumbling, thumping drums and percussion, Brazilian funk in early 80s New York retooled in Glasgow. 

Optimo (An Optimo Espacio Mix)