My Ballad of Arthur Russell | Bklyn Sounds 7/11/2024—7/16/2024

Some thoughts on my relationship to Arthur's music on the occasion of the Dada Strain-curated, 'Travels Over Feeling' @ Celebrate Bklyn + This Week's Shows include: ENO / Maurice Fulton / Lollise / +

Clockwise from upper left: a still from ENO, Maurice Fulton, Arthur Russell (courtesy of Anthology Books) and Lollise.

Like all other New York-raised music nerds I personally know, the name “Arthur Russell” was completely unfamiliar to me growing up, even as hearing his great songs in the clubs or on WBLS and Kiss-FM — specifically, “Go Bang” and “All Over My Face?” — brought forth instant recognition. These were New York tunes, part funk, part New Wave, kinda related to synth-pop and synthy soul in my book — though these did not get onto MTV or cross-over to Casey Kasem, like many others I first heard in the mix. One thing I did recognize, even back then, was how, unlike a lot of other music I listened to, “Go Bang” and “All Over My Face” brought together people who usually did not share sonic experiences, but seemed to be comfortable uniting around this one.

I was still living in D.C. in 1992, so Arthur’s passing from AIDS-related complications in April of that year also did not enter my radar, while the posthumous 1993 release of Another Thought on Philip Glass’ Point Music imprint was too far down a specific modern-classical wormhole for my indie-Dead-discovering-electric-jazz-and-dub ears to hear it  

In fact, Arthur Russell remained unrecognizable to me until 2000, when the late great Adam Goldstone, a New York dance-music sherpa and a wonderful DJ who worked at the (hearsay has it) financially shady but deeply influential Nuphonic label, began connecting my sonic memories to history’s dots. Goldstone was the one who ushered me to do an interview with a weird guy named David Mancuso for CMJ, centered around a pair of Nuphonic compilations Mancuso put together celebrating his long-running party, called “The Loft.”  And it was on those comps, with their incredible liner notes (writers included Goldstone, Tim Lawrence,and the legendary DJs Danny Krivitt, François Kevorkian, Nicky Siano and Steve D'Aquisto) that I finally saw who was responsible for “#5 (Go Bang)” (Dinosaur L, mixed by Kevorkian) and “Is It All Over My face?” (Loose Joints, edited by D’Aquisto). Who the f*ck was Arthur Russell? 

It’s fair to assume that over the last quarter-century, I’ve spent more time investigating Arthur’s work than that of any other artist. A lot of this was due to the fact pretty much all of Arthur’s music was new to me, and to much of the rest of the world. There is also the case of how much music exists — tons of his own tracks, tons of him playing on recordings by his Downtown colleagues — and its incredible stylistic diversity. It has taken time to hear and understand it all, waiting for it to come to light.

Soul Jazz’s exceptional compilation 2004 The World of Arthur Russell, hinted at an avant-garde dance-music that was at the time getting tagged Mutant Disco (or Disco, Not Disco after a pair of excellent Strut comps that “Let Go Swimming” and “Tell You (Today)” first widely appeared on). But this was only the initial glimpse at who Arthur was. According to “School Bell/Treehouse,” he was also a dub-exploring, no-wave minimalist, a fact that his homemade solo-cello recordings confirmed. On “Wild Combination,” a track Goldstone first played for me in 2001 and one of the instant centerpieces of 2004’s Calling Out of Context, the first Audika Records archival release of Arthur’s work, he was an alt-pop singer-songwriter. And the tape-heavy symphonic piece, “Tower of Meaning,” conducted by Julius Eastman and released by Glass’ Chatham Sq label in 1983, but finally issued widely in 2006, made it clear why this Manhattan School of Music drop-out and one-time artistic director of The Kitchen was regarded by colleagues as a new-music prodigy.  

“Calling Out of Context” wasn’t simply a great album title or a wonderful lo-fi drum-machine pop song; it was a banner announcing Arthur’s creative arrival. Though the Dowtown New York milieu in which he worked was seemingly already well-documented, there was very little context to the breadth and volume of this music. The work by Audika and Steve Knutson (under the direction of Arthur’s widow, Tom Lee) excavating both small nuggets and big turns, and instantly demanded historical revision. 

Documentarians soon followed. Where Matt Wolf’s 2008 film, Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, gave the story a topline reading that chose to paint a more traditional musical genius life, Tim Lawrence’s indispensable 2009 book, Hold On To Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992, filled out the complications of a shy gay Midwestern boy turned sensitive, poetic Buddhist in the city recluse, who loved hearing his music on the Paradise Garage soundsystem, and was a connector between some of New York’s most potent cultural movements of the late 20th century. Ahead of his time during his life, and in the afters. Richard King’s excellent new book, Travels Over Feeling: Arthur Russell, a Life, the catalyst for Friday’s concert at Celebrate Brooklyn, splits the difference. It is a visuals-heavy tome based on items in Arthur’s archive, which is housed in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, but also includes a lot of great new interviews with people in Arthur’s life.

One of the stranger circumstances is that in the two decades of breathlessly embracing Arthur’s growing legend, the all-encompassing crossover appeal that marked who he was and his sound before we even knew his name, seems to have fallen by the wayside. The various tribes in the cult of Arthur, its new audiences or institutional programmers of his music, are more focused on his biography, or along the lines of genre safety-nets, with his new-music rarely performed. (The culture has seemingly reserved that spot for his old friend and colleague, Julius Eastman, who is now getting the Arthur treatment.) This surface engagement with only some of the story’s trappings, or with bias projection, could already be sensed at least as far back as Wolf’s film’s devaluation of Arthur’s disco hits. 

How culture deals with the whole of Artthur was in fact central to the conversations that Wordless Music’s Ronen Givony and I had as long a decade ago, when we first discussed our desire to stage a New York version of the symphonic “Tower of Meaning.” At the time, we wanted to pair it with one of Eastman’s minimalist pieces, “Stay On It” or “Femenine,” something where that crossover with dance-music could live in a “classical” setting. (Ronen was responsible for bringing Manuel Gottsching’s performance of “E2-E4” to Lincoln Center; he is, in this, a like-minded ally.) 

The purpose of having Love Injection play a set of Arthur’s great pop-indie-experimental “Buddhist Bubblegum” before “Tower of Meaning,” and for François Kevorkian to DJ re-edits of Dinosaur L and Loose Joints and Killer Whale afterwards, is to unite Arthur’s music outside of his biography, beyond his name. Let’s see if we can bring together audiences of Arthur’s different sounds, ideas and chapters under the shared magnanimity and benevolence of his musical intentions. Arthur Russell’s name is now a powerful brand, especially in New York. Let’s see if it can represent itself rather than what people want to project upon it.  

Travels Over Feeling: Celebrating Arthur Russell featuring the Wordless Music Orchestra, François K + Love Injection (Fri 7/12, 6p @ Celebrate Brooklyn, Prospect Park - FREE) +++ Richard King will read from Travels Over Feeling: Arthur Russell, A Life (Sun 7/14, 5p @ Parkside, Manhattan - FREE)

This Week’s Shows:

A few of Jupiter Disco’s new DJ residencies make for exceptional nights, but this pairing especially stands out. My experience of cry$cross has been of a great young Black post-genre electronic-minded selector pushing and pulling 4/4 traditions into exciting spaces; and JWords (also one-half of the great hip-hop group, H31R) produces tracks that nod to the continuum between numerous Black diaspora dancefloors, and DJs with that vibe. Musically exciting as hell. (Thurs 7/11, 6p @ Jupiter Disco, Bushwick - $5-$10)

The Sloppy Heads monthly residency at Mama Tried, Heads Happenings, reaches a kind of crescendo, as the choogling, roots’n’drone jam-rock nerds welcome extra-special guests. If the great lo-fi pop of Dump (aka James McNew of YLT) is somewhat understandable, as he jams with the Heads on the regular, then the appearance of Nashville’s great weird-ambient country orchestra Lambchop, playing in a much stripped-down version (maybe even just Kurt wagner solo), is a true-blue “WOW” in the backyard under the highway. Highest Recommendation! (Thurs 7/11, 7p @ Mama Tried, Sunset Park - FREE)

It is physically impossible for me to pass up recommending a free Los Lobos gig in New York City. A band whose popular reputation probably still rests on its hit cover of “La Bamba,” it’s also been one of the great American rock and roll institutions of the past 40 years. Getting sonically weird and post-punk cranky one moment, roots-rock jammy the next, and always with a smattering of great Tejano songs and love for East Los Angeles in its DNA, singing the language of consciousness and honor. Simply, one of the best bands around. Also: DJ Reaganomics. (Thurs 7/11, 7p @ Rockefeller Park, Battery Park City - FREE)

It might be spendy, but the three-day Wide Open Works Summer Festival 2024 program over at Matthew Garrison’s Shapeshifter Lab in Park Slope is an exceptional coming together of a couple of generations’ worth of great local improvising musicians: Charlie Burnham, Matt Wilson, Guillermo Klein, Anna Weber playing with Chris Tordini and Ches Smith, Ra Kalam Bob Moses playing with John Medeski and Tisziji Munoz, are just the ones that jump out. (Thurs 7/11—Sat 7/13, 7p @ Shapeshifter Lab, Park Slope - $35 per day/$80 three-day pass)

Summerstage Hip-Hop Taking Over Herbert Von King Park I: Sounds Of Detroit: Celebrating 50 Years of J Dilla is an exceptional bill that features not simply the late great producer’s group Slum Village (original surviving rapper T3, and now Young RJ), but also LA’s funk-masterly Pharcyde, whose biggest hit, 1995’s “Runnin’,” was also Dilla’s coming-out party. The DJs on the day are also incomparable: Breakbeat Lou, the man behind the deeply influential Ultimate Breaks & Beats comps, and the mighty Rich Medina. (Fri. 7/12, 6p @ Herbert Von King Park, Bed-Stuy - FREE)

FILM: The concept behind director Gary Hutswit’s Eno, the subject of which is the titular music producer and sound philosopher (first name: Brian), is a great gimmick. The documentary is a piece of generative film-making, meaning that each time it’s screened, it’s a different cut. The strategy echoes one of Eno’s own great inventions—generative ambient music, and video art—and applies it to the increasingly stagnating world of music documentaries. And while Eno is not a stale subject, and there are plenty of audience-members (raises hand) who’d gladly sit through every frame of content that the film-makers have compiled and Hutswit’s algorithm chooses from, it’s still a great hook. The version I saw in April was fantastic! Highest Recommendation! (opens Fri 7/12, various showtimes @ Film Forum, Manhattan - $17)

New York hosting the immaculate South African singer Thandiswa Mazwai for the second time in a calendar year? For free? I’ll take it — and would 100% be there if not for Arthur in the Park. Since Mazwai’s visit here in January, she’s dropped an excellent new album, Sankofa, co-produced by Meshell Ndegeocello, but her performances are more reliant on the accompanying musicians than on new releases, so which side of the songbook she explores, or what power and flexibility the exhibits, is more down to who’ll share the stage. Still likely to be extraordinary, regardless. Highest Recommendation! (Fri 7/12, 7p @ Bryant Park, Manhattan - FREE)

Among the many reasons to be thankful for musclecars’ is that as part of the duo’s Nowadays residency, they bring Maurice Fulton, one of industrial-post-punk-house-music’s greatest mavericks (and one of my all-time favorite DJs) to the club’s great Ridgewood soundsystem about once a year. This leaves no need of having to trek to a Meatpacking District’s hotel rooftop to bask in the Baltimore-to-Sheffield’s legend’s quirky funk sets. As if we needed another reason to be thankful for musclecars… Highest Recommendation! (Fri 7/12, 10p @ Nowadays, Ridgewood - $10-$30)