1. Arthur RussellCalling Out Of Context
I think it was mid-2000s I bought this, just for the sleeve. I liked the cover picture of him in a cap playing the cello, because it was quite a contradiction. Then it speaks volumes about what the content is about, because he’s playing with this traditional classical instrument and he’s creating all these drones. He’s got so many feathers to his bow, so I went from Calling Out Of Context and then discovered World Of Echo, Instrumentals, First Thought Best Thought, and I thought ‘Oh my God, I’ve found this multi-talented guy who’s into these different practices of music, but it’s all coming from this one guy’ – you know it’s him, even on a country album. He was forging his own sound, and I think it’s because he worked in an isolated way, even though he worked with other musicians… you read that he had problems with collaborating with people, but he needed to be able to do that. ‘Go Bang’ is my all-time favourite song now. I’ve always worked in this way where half of me has been into avant-garde and noise, and the other half has been into pop. It was exciting to have found someone else who explores all these avenues, and explores them in a workaholic way. I imagine he had a work station where he manipulated stuff, used tape machines and his vocals, the delay he used was so subtle, so his personality was reflecting through. If you follow his records it’s like following the narration of his life, there are all these different energies going through them. And that was all from seeing his photograph on a record cover.
