The Strange and Beautiful World of Arthur Russell

Bureau of Lost Culture

When musician ARTHUR RUSSELL died in 1992, at age 40, of complications related to HIV-AIDS, he was an obscure figure — though a legend in the 70s and 80s underground music scenes at downtown New York clubs such as The Loft and Paradise Garage.

Despite his prodigious output, his inability to finish songs, and the genre-busting uniqueness of much of his music, meant that he released only two albums under his own name. But in the decades since his death, he has generated a deep love and admiration in theose who have been lucky to come across his music.

RICHARD KING, author of 'Travels Over Feeling'(Faber) a beautiful new visual chronology of Arthur's life and times, came to the the Bureau to tell us about him and why he matters.

We also get into indie record shop culture, music sobbery, the underground New York club scene of the mid seventies and ask the question: 'How do we know when, a song, a book or a piece of art is finished?'

Thanks to Dan Papps at Faber and to Steve Knutson of Audika Records and Cat Corrigan of Beggars Banquet who have posthumously released much of Arthur's unpublished work, for permission to include his music.

We also included two selections from Matt Wolf’s film 'Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell'

Image by Joel Sokolov/Courtesy of Audika Records