Arthur Russell – the enigma of Arthur Russell. Today marks the publication of Travels Over Feeling, the long awaited biography and archival trawl from Anthology Editions. A UK edition from Faber and Faber will be out on April 18
Here’s Allen and David Byrne and Philip Glass discussing the impact of Arthur’s work, back in 1994:
“The music of Arthur Russell defies classification. Across a twenty-year career he created a body of work which ranged from his pioneering compositions as part of the New York avant-garde alongside artists including Philip Glass, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, John Cage and Allen Ginsberg, to his genre-expanding disco and art pop productions, to his posthumously released folk songs . Russell crafted timeless and foundationally influential work until his premature death in 1992 from AIDS-related illnesses. Now, in a landmark publication assembled by critically-acclaimed writer Richard King, Travels Over Feeling collects the extensive ephemera found in Russell’s New York Public Library archive, along with pieces from the personal collections of those who were closest to him. Combining unseen visual material, handwritten scores, lyrics, photos, letters, and drawings, with new texts by King and extensive original interviews with Arthur’s collaborators, contemporaries, family, and friends, Travels Over Feeling paints a portrait of Arthur Russell unlike any which has come before, revealing a true picture of one of the most distinctive artists of the last fifty years.”
On the 2016 purchase of Arthur Russell’s archive by the New York Public Library -see here
On “Do What I Want”, the exhibit at The Brooklyn Museum, the following year – see here
World of Echo, (released in 1986, and subsequently posthumously released in 2004-5 (by Audika in the US and by Rough Trade in the UK), initially was ignored but subsequently garnered pretty much universal acclaim.
Cameron Macdonald speaks of Russell’s “remarkable” “mass rediscovery and mythologization” in his review of the record for Pitchfork – see here
Audika, out of Portland, Oregon, in the person of Steve Knutson, working in collaboration with Tom Lee, Arthur’s partner, continues to release his music and continues to keep the legacy alive.
Jayson Green explains:
“The person who knew Russell most intimately was his partner, Tom Lee, and our vision of Arthur Russell, however spectral, is largely a product of his work… After Russell’s death from AIDS in 1992, Lee tasked himself with sorting through the thousands of poorly labeled tapes Russell left behind. Working with Steve Knutson.. Lee has fleshed out Russell’s catalog with extraordinary care.
The albums that Audika has released—including masterpieces like Calling Out Of Context, Love Is Overtaking Me, and Iowa Dream – have redefined what it means to tend to a musical legacy. Each release feels like a coherent piece of a larger picture—a remarkable feat, considering that it doesn’t seem to be at all the way Russell worked. He never stopped working on music that always sounded unfinished, switching endlessly between projects. But Lee and Knutson have taken his unruly, wide-ranging muse and transformed it into a catalog. The result feels less like a discography than a neural map of Russell’s creative process.”
These notes and observations are part of a Pitchfork review of Audika’s most recent (2023) Arthur Russell recording – Picture of Bunny Rabbit – see here
Steve Knutson is interviewed about Picture of Bunny Rabbit and Arthur – here
Reminiscent of Pat Thomas’ recent Ginsberg archival mining, Travels Over Feelings presents a unique and stimulating overview of the variety and distinction of Russell’s work
Here’s Russell and Allen together on “Pacific High Studio Mantras”
and here’s the A-side “Ballad of the Lights“:
Read Kitty Empire‘s review of the book in The Observer – here
Arthur’s upcoming celebration gig at London’s Barbican – see here