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"Instrumentals"

by Arthur Russell

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $12 USD  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    2022 repress.
    Remastered double LP with 12 page booklet including liner notes by Tim Lawrence, Ernie Brooks and Arthur Russell.

    For this remastered vinyl edition, a key part of Arthur’s musical life has been restored. The sparkling, multidimensional results take the listener closer to Arthur’s coast-to-coast journey: his iconoclastic determination to combine pop and art music; and his desire to make music that would resonate in the present and, ultimately, across time.

    Includes unlimited streaming of "Instrumentals" via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $31 USD or more 

     

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Reach One 16:30

about

Remastered double LP with 12 page booklet including liner notes by Tim Lawrence, Ernie Brooks and Arthur Russell.

8.4 on Pitchfork: pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/23035-instrumentals/

Track list:

“Instrumentals” Vol. 1
“Instrumentals” Vol. 2
Sketch for “Face Of Helen”
Reach One

All material previously released on the Audika CD compilation First Thought Best Thought. arthurrussell.bandcamp.com/album/first-thought-best-thought

Before Disco, and before the transcendent echoes, Arthur wanted to be a composer.

His journey began in 1972, leaving home in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Heading west to Northern California, Arthur studied Indian classical composition at the Ali Akbar Khan College of Music followed by western orchestral music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, before ending two years later in New York at the Manhattan School of Music.

Traversing the popular and the serious, Arthur composed “Instrumentals” in 1974, inspired by the photography of his Buddhist teacher, Yuko Nonomura, as Arthur described, “I was awakened, or re-awakened to the bright-sound and magical qualities of the bubblegum and easy-listening currents in American popular music”.

Initially intended to be performed in one 48 hour cycle, “Instrumentals” was in fact only performed in excerpts a handful of times as a work in progress.

The legendary performances captured live in New York at The Kitchen (1975 and 1978) and Franklin St. Arts Center (1977) feature the cream of that eras downtown new music scene including Ernie Brooks, Rhys Chatham, Julius Eastman, Jon Gibson, Peter Gordon, Garrett List, Andy Paley, Bill Ruyle, Dave Van Tieghem, and Peter Zummo.

Pitchfork lauded “Instrumentals” Vol. 1 as a masterpiece and one of Arthur’s “greatest achievements”. Americana touching on Copeland, Ives, and maybe even Brian Wilson. “Instrumentals” Vol. 2 is a moving, deeply pastoral work performed by the CETA Orchestra and conducted by Julius Eastman.

pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/23035-instrumentals/

Also included are two of Arthur’s most elusive compositions, Reach One, and Sketch For “Face Of Helen”. Recorded live in 1975 at Phill Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia Foundation, Reach One is a minimal, hypnotic ambient soundscape written and performed for two Fender Rhodes pianos. Sketch For “Face Of Helen” was inspired by Arthur’s work with friend and composer Arnold Dreyblatt, recorded with an electronic tone generator, keyboard and ambient recordings of a rumbling tugboat from the Hudson River.

credits

released February 24, 2017

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Arthur Russell New York, New York

American cellist, artist, and composer (born 21 May 1951 in Oskaloosa, Iowa, USA - died 4 April 1992 from AIDS in New York, New York, USA (aged 40). Licensing inquires steve (at) audikarecords (dot) com

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