A new live album has been jointly released by Rough Trade and Audika Records taking in a full unedited solo performance by Arthur Russell captured in December 1985.
Open Vocal Phrases, Where Songs Come In And Out features a set that Russell played for Phill Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York City. “Phill curated and produced with Arthur two concerts at EI that would become an integral part of the foundation for the final World Of Echo album,” a press release said, offering more context on the performance.
Russell later edited sections from this performance and merged it with studio material recorded at the Battery Sound studio to finalise World Of Echo, which was released in 1986.
In a statement, Tom Lee, Russell’s longtime partner and the custodian of his musical archives, said: “Some of it sounds so pure and clear and I am picturing him huddled around all that gear, simply magical. In my memory he didn’t play ‘for’ the audience but was rather trying to perfect these various permutations of sound within himself… and a few of us just happened to be present.”
While the live album is available digitally now on Bandcamp, a vinyl and CD release is set to follow in North America on March 28 and the rest of the world on April 18.
Open Vocal Phrases, Where Songs Come In And Out is out now on Rough Trade / Audika Records.
