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Arthur Russell, "World of Echo"
The year 2004 might be remembered as the Year of Arthur Russell. Although the artist died of AIDS more than a decade ago, leaving behind a large and varied body of work, he lived and died in an unintelligible fog of near-total obscurity. Kicked off by The World of Arthur Russell, the Soul Jazz label's compilation of the artist's crucial disco productions, the year also saw the release of Calling Out of Context, the debut release for Audika Records, a label devoted to releasing Arthur Russell's works for posterity.
Now comes Audika's deluxe, remastered, expanded reissue of World of Echo, which in my opinion, stands as Arthur Russell's most fully realized masterpiece. Originally released in 1986 to very little fanfare, World of Echo is an inscrutably brilliant album of minimalist pop, Russell showcasing his unique method of singing and playing the cello simultaneously, a skill that he developed over years of private rehearsal. The album consists of 14 tracks of Russell playing and singing in his remarkably unique style, every track coated with gorgeous layers of feedback and reverb, with subtle undercurrents of electronic ambience forming an eerie, dislocated cushion of air, upon which the melodies float.
Rather than using drum machines or live percussion as he had done in the past, Russell opted for a nearly rhythm-less environment, the time signatures instead provided by a subtle implication in the pulls of his bow and the vacillations of his voice. The rhythm is never missed, though, because it's still there, living in the margins of Russell's distinct phrasing, his uncanny ability to suggest layers of complexity and harmony in deceptively simple melodies. The artist's unique use of echo reached its absolute zenith on this album, with the subtle play of delay joining each successive vocal phrase or plucked note to the next, creating an amorphous current of sound that answers each call like a quickly decaying chorus. Though most of the lyrics on World of Echo can be discerned, it seems clear that Russell was more interested in the shapes and sounds of words than creating a meaningful lyric, an intention that is made clear is Russell's brief liner notes. The artist connects with his dance music past with the inclusion of several songs which revisit his best disco sides—"Wax the Van," "Treehouse," and "Let's Go Swimming"—transforming them into painfully intimate echoes of his personal history. There are ripples and eddies and snaking jet streams on World of Echo, there are moments of an intensely confessional sexual nature, moments of sadness and of joy.
In addition to the remastered CD, which includes four bonus tracks from the same sessions as the original album, Audika has also included a bonus DVD containing two films by Phill Niblock - "Terrace of Unintelligibility" and "Some Imaginary Far Away Type Things." These films both showcase Arthur Russell performing material from the album in a series of tight close-ups, the camera traveling freely up and down the length of the cello, or across Russell's face, or onto the colored light-boxes that form the studio backdrop. It's a very appropriate visual accompaniment to Russell's music, giving glimpses at intriguing fragments, but never revealing the whole. Audika also deserves credit for a great packaging job, with both discs housed in a glossy foldout DVD case containing a beautiful color photo booklet. Taken together, album and film, the effect of World of Echo is narcotic, a hypnotic work of breathtakingly unique music that only grows in its otherworldly appeal as I gradually learn to negotiate its strange new lexicon of mysteriously unintelligible syllables and trancelike, resonant echoes.
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