ARTHUR RUSSELL

Calling Out Of Context/Instrumentals (reissues, 2004, 2017)

ROUGH TRADE

9/10, 8/10

THIRTY years after his Aidsrelated death, aged just 40, Arthur Russell’s music still has a luminous freshness and richly emotional power. The cult composer, cellist and downtown New York scene-hopper amassed a vast body of work spanning avant-classical chamber pieces, disco and dub, experimental electronica, folksy Americana and Buddhist bubblegum pop, but he released very little solo material in his lifetime. Russell’s radical queerness and genreblurring musical promiscuity confounded peers and record labels, but he also stifled his own potential