:)
― J. Sam, Friday, 22 November 2019 16:28 (four years ago) link
re AR walking around and around, dressed as The Decider etc., and the artistic payoff still emerging, I'm especially struck by this but in Jenn Pelly's review:In “You Did It Yourself,” Russell seems to be experiencing yet another moment of endearing self-sabotage (“You did it yourself/It keeps you down”) and also reflecting on a “thrilling” film he saw “last night”: “Understood all of it very well/I didn’t like the ending though/Maybe I’m crazy but it just seemed tacked on.” The pieces of his sung critique stream by like a river. Russell was prone to the unresolvable, to the nonlinear, to atmosphere over concrete. The miracle of his catalog is how the seams mend together, stitch by stitch, a different way forward, as if creating no “endings” for himself
But also, becoming ace at envisioning daily deaths of the heart, as in the killer finale, "In Love With You For The last Time," though of course you gotta come back to life for another last time, in his cycles especially.
― dow, Friday, 22 November 2019 16:32 (four years ago) link
this *bit* in Jenn Pelly's review, which I meant to link:https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/arthur-russell-iowa-dream/
― dow, Friday, 22 November 2019 16:33 (four years ago) link
Unreleased Loose Joints instrumental and acapellas for RSD 2020
https://aboveboarddist.co.uk/rsd-2020-loose-joints-is-it-all-over-my-face-40th-anniversary-inc-masters-at-work-kon-remixes-west-end-records/
― I am using your worlds, Thursday, 5 March 2020 19:04 (four years ago) link
wish they would release "Let'd Go Play Baseball" from that insane mix linked upthread, but this is pretty cool even if it's just all versions of 1 tune
― sleeve, Thursday, 5 March 2020 19:08 (four years ago) link
still being knocked out by Iowa Dream, so great.
― tylerw, Thursday, 5 March 2020 19:16 (four years ago) link
Me too. It's just as good as Love Is Overtaking Me
― paolo, Thursday, 5 March 2020 19:26 (four years ago) link
This may be a silly question, but how is it possible for labels to still be putting out 'new' Arthur Russell material (or indeed material from other artists that was recorded decades ago)? Are there just loads of recordings sitting around that nobody's got around to releasing, or are there legal issues involved, or do they not think that there's a market for this stuff?
― paolo, Thursday, 5 March 2020 19:29 (four years ago) link
w/r/t Russell in particular, Steve Knutson has the rights to the archives and there is still a ton of unreleased material from what a friend who knows him tells me
weirdly it seems like the Loose Joints stuff and some other things are via Sleeping Bag and hav different rights situation as shown by the reissue linked in the revive
― sleeve, Thursday, 5 March 2020 19:33 (four years ago) link
Are there just loads of recordings sitting around that nobody's got around to releasing, or are there legal issues involved, or do they not think that there's a market for this stuff?i think audika doesn't want to just unload tons and tons of stuff — russell was notoriously protective of his music and they want to do it right.
― tylerw, Thursday, 5 March 2020 19:41 (four years ago) link
yeah that matches what I've heard secondhand
― sleeve, Thursday, 5 March 2020 19:45 (four years ago) link
yeah, i mean, it'd be nice to have more, but you can't argue with knutson's quality control so far.
― tylerw, Thursday, 5 March 2020 19:53 (four years ago) link
Agreed that Steve Knutson has done a great job.
― in twelve parts (lamonti), Wednesday, 11 March 2020 05:48 (four years ago) link
from Rolling Jazz 2020:https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/to-cy-lee-instrumentals-vol-1
The music of "To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1" contains naturally elegant orchestration wrapped around something visceral and primordial. Swirled inside the 11 pieces are shades of Japanese Min’yo folk, Celtic folk, the Ethio-jazz of saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya and hints of the pan-human ‘ancient music’ that sat underneath Arthur Russell’s melodies on First Thought, Best Thought. The music is filled with space, inspired, he says, by computer games and Japanese animation, particularly Joe Hisaishi’s.
this is exquisite
― calzino, Wednesday, March 11, 2020 6:26 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
nice! was just going to ask about that one--it hasn't crossed my radar at all, but Mekurya, Arthur Russell, and Castle in the Sky are all among my favorite things and I didn't expect to ever see them grouped in a music blurb
btw, I don't care where we talk about IA, but there is this thread if you missed it: International Anthem: S/D
― rob, Wednesday, March 11, 2020
― dow, Thursday, 12 March 2020 18:51 (four years ago) link
live set from 1985 — sounds amazing. also sounds like there were maybe four people there. https://roulette.org/event/arthur-russell-2/
― tylerw, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 19:00 (four years ago) link
wow, thanks!
― sleeve, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 19:28 (four years ago) link
God damn, this is beautiful, thanks so much!
― Maresn3st, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 20:10 (four years ago) link
it really is great!
― tylerw, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 20:24 (four years ago) link
It really, really is, pity I there's no download option. I loved the 20 min video from Phil Niblock's flat that surfaced years ago and this has exactly that same atmosphere.
― Maresn3st, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 20:25 (four years ago) link
right-click and "save as", worked for me!
― sleeve, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 20:35 (four years ago) link
yeah, you can "save audio as" and get the mp3
― tylerw, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 20:40 (four years ago) link
Wow, this is amazing, thanks for the heads-up--yeah, as long as I right-clicked on the timeclock, saving as mp3 worked for me
― Wallet Youth (Craig D.), Wednesday, 25 March 2020 20:45 (four years ago) link
Incredible find. I love this. Thank you for sharing here.
― Deflatormouse, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 21:42 (four years ago) link
XXXP - Thanks guys, I was clicking the wrong bit of the player it seemed, got it now, awes!
― Maresn3st, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 22:10 (four years ago) link
Oh my! What a wonderful thing; a revelation! So many of my favourite AR songs some in prototype form. I'm welling up listening to this and it was recorded on my 17th birthday which somehow makes it resonate all the more.
― stirmonster, Thursday, 26 March 2020 02:35 (four years ago) link
Yeah this is wonderful indeed.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Thursday, 26 March 2020 06:50 (four years ago) link
just lovely
― Tib, Thursday, 26 March 2020 07:20 (four years ago) link
Amazing!
― paolo, Thursday, 26 March 2020 10:49 (four years ago) link
Marvelous, thanks so much for sharing tyler!
― Le Bateau Ivre, Thursday, 26 March 2020 11:32 (four years ago) link
I saved it by going to the link via plain Chrome, no Incognito, and clicking on those three dots at after the audio icon--didn't even have to use Sound Pirate (which works in plain Chrome, that's why I went there that way).In case this goes away, here's the lowdown, for people of the future:
Arthur RussellSaturday, March 2, 1985. 9:00 pmThe influential and profoundly brave cross-genre artist (1951-1992) presented “The Deer In The Forest,” and other extended vocal compositions with his ubiquitous amplified cello.
Update 2019: With Peter Zummo, trombone, and possibly Elodie Lauten or Steven Hall on Casio keyboard. Considered early versions of songs that became more focused later. For example, Each Step Is Moving (around 7 minutes in), is substantially This Is How We Walk On The Moon, which wasn’t released until 1994, posthumously. In this concert Russell was experimenting with repeated phrases and lines, as if testing them out, which likely emerged later in more developed versions.
― dow, Saturday, 28 March 2020 19:02 (four years ago) link
of all the post arthur passing releases or shares- this is the one for me
― Tib, Wednesday, 1 April 2020 15:02 (three years ago) link
This live set plus World Of Echo and Another Thought are sure helping me deal with this bullshit
― paolo, Monday, 20 April 2020 10:09 (three years ago) link
tim lawrence's bio of arthur russell "hold on to your dreams" is quite good. pretty good balance of focus on his work vs. his personal life.
i wrote this tweet about one of my favorite revelations from the book:
I’m learning from “Hold On to Your Dreams” by Tim Lawrence that Arthur Russell collaborated with almost every NYC musician of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but I was still shocked by the reveal of this anecdote pic.twitter.com/HFypGCOhTS— n1ck amm3rman (@somelanguage) July 21, 2020
― na (NA), Wednesday, 22 July 2020 16:43 (three years ago) link
that's a wild one
― Temporary Erogenous Zone (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 22 July 2020 17:03 (three years ago) link
oh yeah gary lucas posted the tape of that somewhere a while back, it's wild indeed
― Kate (rushomancy), Wednesday, 22 July 2020 17:15 (three years ago) link
if you go to my tweet, there's a follow-up tweet with a youtube of the music they worked on together. it's pretty bad. some very basic stripped-down '80s beats from russell and terrible rapping from vinny d
― na (NA), Wednesday, 22 July 2020 17:26 (three years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wet2Kla6c9c
― na (NA), Wednesday, 22 July 2020 17:27 (three years ago) link
vin is further from the pocket than chief keef
― Temporary Erogenous Zone (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 22 July 2020 20:22 (three years ago) link
I had heard that story but didn't know that the recording was on YouTube. It's really not great.
― paolo, Wednesday, 22 July 2020 20:25 (three years ago) link
Imagine if Arthur had worked with some rappers who were actually good...
As he co-founded Sleeping Bag Records he must have had the chance to consider working with some good rappers.
I also dream that there is an unreleased collaboration with Kurtis Mantronik languishing in a vault somewhere.
― stirmonster, Wednesday, 22 July 2020 21:22 (three years ago) link
he worked on something with kurtis mantronik but apparently they didn't mesh well
― na (NA), Wednesday, 22 July 2020 21:25 (three years ago) link
the lawrence book says they got together a couple of times and enjoyed talking about music but ultimately kurtis thought russell was too weird
― na (NA), Wednesday, 22 July 2020 21:27 (three years ago) link
as i have read the book i have obviously completely and utterly forgotten all about this. I shall keep dreaming that it was actually the best thing ever.
― stirmonster, Wednesday, 22 July 2020 21:53 (three years ago) link
Oh man, this looks good, I didn't realise that more of this performance existed.
https://arthurrussell.bandcamp.com/album/sketches-for-world-of-echo-june-25-1984-live-at-ei
On an evening in late June of 1984, Arthur Russell lugged his cello down to Centre Street in Soho, to his friend Phill Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia Foundation, a large room in which sound searched for, and continues to find, new expression. Here, Arthur set up his equipment, which his companion Tom Lee remembers could be an excruciating process of plugging and testing and waiting. As contemporary listeners of Arthur’s ever-expanding catalogue, it’s perhaps easy to position this moment in terms of Arthur’s known trajectory—on this June evening, he was two years away from distilling this material into his solo opus World of Echo, and also from receiving the HIV/AIDs diagnosis that would cut short his vivid and restless musical career.
Harder than establishing a trajectory, however, is the task of entering Arthur’s labyrinthian musical mind. Sketches for World of Echo, Arthur’s live performance at Niblock’s space, now rewards listeners with an unprecedented chance. On this ethereal progression of songs which blend into one another almost hypnotically, their only punctuation a few coughs and some clapping at the end, we hear a thirty-three year-old laying out a kind of sonic draft for World of Echo, the only solo album he released before dying in this same city at age forty. Niblock remembers this rich stage of Arthur’s style acutely, and would capture it again, on a PCM recorder a year later in this same room, in the collaborative film Terrace of Unintelligibility. On this summer evening, though, Arthur experiments in real time with the effects of amplification on his 18th century cello, and with swinging his voice alternately between purposeful incomprehensibility and brief clarity. Snippets of lyrics rise from the performance thirty-six years ago, but often, Arthur decides to abandon clear language, and blends his voice with that of his cello, trying for an ongoing mesmeric atmosphere. Pieces of the future World of Echo float up briefly, namely in “Let’s Go Swimming.” A version of the ever-melancholic “Losing My Taste for the Nightlife” unfurls softly over the cello’s light rhythm. Meanwhile, the hovering, almost gilded stretch of cello-and-tape in the previously unheard “Sunlit Water” transports us elsewhere for more than ten minutes, a heavenly ending meditation. As ever with Arthur Russell, each new release pushes back our sense of this idiosyncratic, deeply imaginative composer’s horizon. Sketches for World of Echo now joins the rest of the music in Arthur’s huge and gorgeous ocean, into which he invites us to listen live for the first time, and to, in his words, go swimming.
― Maresn3st, Friday, 6 November 2020 09:15 (three years ago) link
Whaaaaaattt
― paolo, Friday, 6 November 2020 09:51 (three years ago) link
Oh my god thank you so much for posting this because it's given me a chance to cop the limited edition cassette. Not many copies so be quick people!
― paolo, Friday, 6 November 2020 09:52 (three years ago) link
Yeah thanks maresn3st, I copped one, too!
― willem, Friday, 6 November 2020 09:56 (three years ago) link
Hopped on top ofThis this morning
― call mr zbow that's my name that name again is mr zbow (Craig D.), Friday, 6 November 2020 11:13 (three years ago) link
Beautiful.
― stirmonster, Friday, 6 November 2020 11:34 (three years ago) link