Ok . MORE Arthur Russell (But This Is Great)

xp doh sorry Steve Knutsen, Audika dude.

Jed you legend <3

Just got a bandcamp notification about a new album called Iowa Dream. One song, “You Did It Yourself”, available now.

brilliant news. love the track. thanks!

Can't wait to hear this!

Presumably this is from a forthcoming album?

yes

Oops’ I see I misread. One of the tracks is out on Spotify already. Looking forward to Iowa Dream

on a separate note, I had no idea that Audika label head Steve Knutson has a long history of involvement with Tommy Boy and Wax Trax.

Nice!! Seems like this is gonna be Love Is Overtaking Me pt. 2

Love Is Overtaking Me is the only country album I've ever enjoyed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGtQASRq2Ak&feature=youtu.be

dammit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGtQASRq2Ak

ah, there are at least a couple other good country albums! even if i probably prefer bluegrass and/or western swing.

so hey, while this is being revived for other purposes, i'm just going to ask:

what's a good starting place with this dude? i had first thought best thought for a while and i really liked the first run of tracks on disc one, but the rest of it kind of lost me. i know he was kind of all over the place, ranging from house records to modern composition. i seem to recall hearing this one back during my tower records tenure, but i don't think i was quite hip to the vibe just yet. perhaps a revisit would be worthwhile in that case.

so, my question is: what's the one disc that will showcase the best representation of what makes his music awesome?

well that comp (The World Of Arthur Russell) is the best place to start IMO

after that, I'd say maybe Calling Out Of Context? They are all pretty different

Or the Another Though album perhaps?

I would say Another Thought and World Of Echo

Or the Nick The Record RA podcast above

Well, it depends on what you're looking for; he was restless and at home on quite a range--for me, the gateway was The World of because I was looking for this guy, described in a blurb on the shrinkwrap: In The early 80s, Russell brought the avant-garde with futuristic music that inspired people like Phili[ Glass, Francois K, David Byrne and many more. He blurred the line between Disco, Classical, Jazz and Dub." Another blurb doesn't bother with the namedropping: "a thrill-a-minute collection of dubbed-out-disco, echo-laden acoustics, reverberating vocals and horns. Wonderful!"
According to his bandcamp, the new album will have some of this approach and the "dream-bicycle" Great Plains jingle-jangle of Love Is Overtaking Me as well.

brought the avant-garde to the dance floor, that is. He told Allen Ginsberg that he was going for "Buddhist bubblegum," though he went for several other things as well.

Boy that's what I get for typing fast, sorry.

world of Arthur, then world of echo. basically, the part of First Thought that you like is "Instrumentals" and has since been remastered and released on its own. it's great but not real representative.

dang, how much more music is there?? new song is nice.

The World of Arthur Russell is the World of I was referring to, sorry. yeah, Echo and Calling Out of Context and, out there for the field trips, Love is Overtaking Me, are my faves.

Strangely, I've taken to recommending the 'Wild Combination' documentary as a good intro to Arthur, because it really does convey a good sense of the boundless breadth and depth of his musical fascinations--as well as telling his story in a very emotionally compelling way (seen a number of folks who'd never heard of him in tears by the end, and who've gone out and bought albums thereafter).

Circa 2002, I used to foist CD-R copies of 'World of Echo' on people. So I'd have to advise people to start there, then probably 'World of Arthur Russell' and 'Another Thought,' then 'Love Is Overtaking Me' and 'Calling Out of Context,' then all the rest.

Excited for this new one, but a bit nervous about the "completed by" component--I think I'd rather have the unvarnished demos than things that are fairly sure to sound 2019 even if they're trying to sound 1974. But, I'm sure there will be moments of brilliance no matter what.

Plus in the documentary, you get to hear Mimi Goese's beautiful rendition of an AR song called 'Time To Go Home Now', which has yet to emerge from the archives (if it was even recorded at all), I got so curious about the song I asked Tim Lawrence, who drew a blank, so I then approached Mimi (via Facebook) about it and she wrote me this back -

hey,
thanks for your interest in arthur the magnificent. dick connette (he used the name A. Leroy) and I worked together in the 80's. I forwarded your request to dick and this is his reply:
Arthur Russell was a friend and musical colleague of mine going back to the late seventies. Mimi and I wrote and performed together for a while in the late eighties and early nineties. I asked Arthur if he had any songs that he would like us to do and he handed me lead sheets and home solo recordings of two - "Canvas House" and "Time To Go Home Now," both of which we played in public. It was only later, I think maybe even after Arthur died, that I discovered that, apparently, Arthur had written them both especially for us. I was retrospectively touched and honored.

Great to know, thanks! Wonder if he did that for anybody else?
Speaking of other people performing AR, Master Mix: Red Hot + Arthur Russell has quite a harvest, via Blood Orange, Robyn, Lonnie Holley, many others (2 CDs)
Wild Combination is worth getting on DVD for the extras, and speaking of Tim Lawrence, Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992 should be useful and entertaining, judging by his first book, Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979, which I'm reading now.

That's a lovely anecdote Maresnest, thanks for sharing.

Thanks, it's such a lovely track, and crucially placed in the documentary just after Arthur passes away, with slow-motion shots of wheat fields iirc, very sad and beautiful, it really haunted me.

On a happier note, Mimi's record 'Soak' from which it is taken, is brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF3dNllTzIA

wow, I have to rewatch that movie.

I can't remember if I heard Tell You Today before I heard Robyn's version. Both are amazing.

holy moly I am a big Hugo Largo fan but never knew any of this, it's been over a decade since i watched that documentary

thank you everyone for your responses. andy was working on recording all weekend so i just now came back to this wealth of information and well-considered recommendations. have ordered world of echo and world of arthur russell and very much looking forward.

i got world of echo from amazon, so it came with the "autorip" dealie. jammin` it now and i was just wondering if anyone knows what actual galaxy he was from? because i can say with a good amount of confidence it wasn't this one.

album is one of the most unique things i've ever heard. correct me if i'm wrong, but this is just him playing cello through various effects and singing, right?

got my copy of the world of arthur russell in the mail yesterday and have been enjoying it greatly during this morning's commute. i remembered exactly 0% of what this sounded like, so it's essentially new to me. really fine stuff; totally different from world of echo lol. very cool to have a peak into what must have been a really interesting scene at the time. really like 'in the light of the miracle' especially. i love the vague liquid liquid / esg / 99 records vibe it has.

Yeah, and I like "Waxing the Van" too---no metaphor there, far as I can tell: he's just waxing the van all over his face in the light of the miracle.

You gotta be clean on your bean in order for that hat to stay on.

Got home to a copy of 'Iowa Dream' in the mailbox--so excited for more Arthur. If this turns out to be even half as good as 'Love Is Overtaking Me' I'll be thrilled.

Mine should arrive tomorrow. Excited.

it sounds good:
https://daily.bandcamp.com/2019/11/15/arthur-russell-iowa-dream-review/

Some of it is startling. Just when you think maybe you're acquainted with the length and breadth of his output, more amazing things appear.

Yeah, whole thing is now on bandcamp (I pre-ordered CD, ain't sorry)
https://arthurrussell.bandcamp.com/album/iowa-dream

this is lovely. jeez how much more could there be?

this is unbelievable. absolutely enthralled by it.

agreed. is there anything this guy couldn't do? title track is just joyous, bursting with life

this is nuts. I don't know anything about the state of the archives, but how is this stuff just coming out now? For me this is much better than Love Is Overtaking Me. Just wow. Gorgeous.

It's fascinating to see where his head was at before punk/disco and all the rest.

This is $10.99 on CD at Deep Discount, FYI (deepdiscount.com) vs. $14.98 on Amazon (I'm not a shill, I swear!). This is one of those select releases where I'm resisting the temptation to listen on streaming before I can hear it for the first time on non-lossy media.

How fresh and 'of now' can recordings of thirty odd years sound. Genius.

words of love is my favourite after one listen through

Moderator request to pls change the thread title to Ok . MORE Arthur Russell (It's all Great)