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Personnel: Arthur Russell (vocals, cello, keyboards, drum programming); Peter Zummo (trombone). Recording information: CORN (1985/1988); New York, NY (1985/1988). Author: Todd Burns. SPRINGFIELD is a posthumous collection of demos and rarities from avant-disco composer Arthur Russell's unreleased album, CORN. Misunderstood and overlooked in its time, his music drew unforeseen connections between New York's avant-garde, rock, and disco scenes. Drawing upon the rhythmic pulse of Indian classical music and the stripped-down, dub-influenced disco edits of Tom Moulton, Russell's own unique productions bore the distinctive imprint of his fragile but affecting voice--a melismatic, often wordless murmur. A brilliant teaser to his diverse oeuvre, SPRINGFIELD makes for a great introduction to left-field dance-music's spiritual forefather. Cynics might level charges of barrel-scraping against Springfield, Audika's fifth archival Arthur Russell release, which features unfinished material and alternate versions of available tracks. However, to characterize these works in progress as inessential misses the point that, as an artist famously devoted to reworking and revising, Russell focused on the creative process, not the end product. That ethos resonated in the styles he explored, eschewing conventional, well-wrought forms or a narrative movement toward closure. He gravitated to disco's emphasis on open-endedness, rhythm, repetition, and being in the moment; by contrast, on 1986's spacy World of Echo he pursued a more oceanic fluidity. Springfield incorporates both tendencies. The title track (one of Russell's final pieces) appears in three guises: an unfinished eight-minute rendering and a brief fragment, plus a DFA mix. Russell's full-length original marries beats and synth with his minimalist combination of reverbed tenor vocals, sawing cello, and slurring horns; the DFA's treatment doesn't transform the track but rearranges the order in which its elements emerge, also giving those elements sharper definition with space between them. Originally intended for the unreleased 1985 Corn album, versions of "Let's Go Swimming" and "Hiding Your Present from You" dramatize how much Russell reworked his material: here, prominent dance beats drive these numbers, whereas their subsequent incarnations on World of Echo are hushed and ethereal. Other Corn tracks are similarly intriguing: for "You Have Did the Right Thing When You Put That Skylight In," Russell abandons the dancefloor, distorting his cello to heavy metal proportions over a no-nonsense 4/4 beat; with its pulsing rhythm, primitive Casiotone, and droning cello, "Corn #3" evokes the hypnotic, motorik glide of Neu! and Harmonia. Releasing an artist's work posthumously isn't always advisable. Notwithstanding occasional gems, musicians rarely leave behind studio recordings amounting to anything more than sonic footnotes for obsessive completists. That's not the case with Russell, though, as Springfield amply demonstrates. ~ Wilson NeateThe Wire (p.59) - "'Springfield' is a sumptuous slice of pop, mixing electro drum sounds with candyfloss synth melancholia and a wafting trombone hook." Arthur Russell Springfield Songs Springfield Review
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Purchase Springfield CD To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Fall I Can Hear The Grass Grow (2005)
Springfield
$7.99
| | Arthur Russell First Thought Best Thought CDs (2006)
Springfield
$19.95 Personnel: Ernie Brooks, Rhys Chatham, Jon Gibson, Peter Gordon , Garrett List. Audika Records can't be beat for their efforts to bring the work of composer, cellist, and songwriter Arthur Russell back into the public eye. Russell, who passed away in 1992 at the age 40 from complications due to AIDS, was well-known in downtown New York City circles, but was also a cipher in many ways. While he played on the Talking Heads' first single, he also played and recorded with Allen Ginsberg, made a slew of 12" disco singles -- which were spun at NYC clubs and universally celebrated for their originality -- and performed regularly at the Kitchen. But he was also rather notorious for recording full-length albums of his compositions and, ...
| | Arthur Russell Another Thought CD (2006)
Springfield
$13.19 Personnel includes: Arthur Russell (vocals, cello). Personnel: Arthur Russell (violin). Originally released two years after his death, the compilation ANOTHER THOUGHT doesn't try to give an overview of Russell's wildly eclectic career. Rather, it focuses on his late work for voice and cello. These songs are intimate and spare, but that doesn't mean melancholy. Russell's voice is a kind of soulful mumble, mostly hushed but occasionally more insistent. The cello work is by turns lyrical and funky, full of a bubbling energy even on the slower numbers. Among other pleasures, ANOTHER THOUGHT includes a shorter version ...
| | Joanna Newsom Ys CD (2006)
Springfield
$12.69 Personnel: Joanna Newsom (vocals, harp); Joanna Newsom; Matt Cartsonis (banjo, mandolin); John Wittenberg, Cameron Patrick, Shari Zippert, Sharon Jackson, Edmund Stein, Gina Kronstadt, Vladimir Polimatidi, Julie Rogers, Peter Kent (violin); Caroline Buckman, Jessica van Velzen, Karen Elaine, Marda Todd, Miriam Mayer, David Stenske, Briana Bandy (viola); Giovna Clayton, Erika Duke-Kirkpartick (cello); Patricia Cloud, Susan Greenberg (flute); ...
| | Sun Ra & His Astro-Infinity Ark Strange Strings CD (1967)
Springfield
$12.19 Personnel: Sun Ra (strings, electric piano, drums, timpani); Sun Ra; Artie Jenkins (vocals); Ronnie Boykins (bass violin); Bob Cummins (strings, bass clarinet); Ali Harsan, Carl Nimrod, Nimrod (strings); Robert Cummins (bass clarinet); Danny Davis (alto saxophone); John Gilmore (tenor saxophone); Thlan Aldridge (background vocals); Pat Patrick (strings, flute, baritone saxophone); Marshall Allen (strings, oboe, alto saxophone); James Jacson (strings, log drum); Clifford Jarvis (timpani, percussion). Audio ...
| | Dinosaur L 24-24 Music CD (1982)
Springfield
$12.05 It's arguable that no other artist has so successfully conflated the mutually exclusive worlds of disco and avant-garde music than the late cellist/composer/producer Arthur Russell. In the late '70s, he casually mixed it up with New York City's modern classical elite, as well as in its burgeoning underground dance music scene. In 1979, Russell assembled a crew of seasoned session musicians under the name Dinosaur L, recording the first of his many innovative productions, 24-24 MUSIC. Working under the tight conceptual framework of minimal composers like Steve Reich--the title alludes to subtle changes in the music initiated every 24 bars--the album contains a brilliant interplay of structured rhythms and loose improvisatory jams. ...
| | Son Volt Straightaways CD (1997)
Springfield
$9.09 Son Volt: Jay Farrar (vocals, guitar, harmonica, organ); Dave Boquist (guitar, lap steel guitar, banjo, fiddle); Jim Boquist (bass, background vocals); Mike Heidorn (drums). Additional personnel: Eric Heywood (pedal steel guitar, mandolin); Pauli Ryan (tambourine). Recorded at Echo Park, Bloomington, Indiana and Pachyderm Studios, Cannon Falls, Minnesota. Personnel: Jay Farrar (vocals, guitar, harmonica, organ); Dave Boquist (guitar, steel guitar, banjo, fiddle); Eric Heywood (mandolin); Michael Heidorn (drums); Paulie (tambourine); Jim Boquist (background vocals). Although none of the songs on Straightaways immediately jump off the grooves, as was the case with the band's brilliant debut, Trace, repeated spins reveal a strong effort nonetheless. Whereas former Uncle Tupelo partner Jeff Tweedy and his band, Wilco, used its sophomore release to explore new territory, Son Volt leader and songwriter Jay Farrar keeps his band mining the same country-folk vein that Uncle Tupelo quarried. There are plenty of threads to connect Straightaways to Trace, such as the expressive playing of multi-instrumentalist Dave Boquist on guitars, fiddle, banjo, and lap steel, and Farrar's forlorn vocal delivery, which could give even the weakest song emotional power. On Straightaways, his songs live on the same late-night backwoods rural highways that Trace inhabited, with song titles like "Creosote" and "Cemetery Savior" conjuring up dark imagery. The album contains plenty of high points: the aforementioned ...
| | Los Lobos Town And The City CD (2006) Digipak
Springfield
$12.05 This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files. Los Lobos: Conrad Lozano, David Hidalgo, Louie Pérez, Steve Berlin, Cesar Rosas. With the release of 1992's landmark album, KIKO, Los Lobos broke away from the somewhat limiting "roots-rock" label and established themselves as a band capable of making sonically adventurous, meticulously constructed music. That thread of bold experimentation re-surfaced, to greater or lesser degrees, in the band's successive releases, but it wasn't until 2006's THE TOWN AND THE CITY that Los Lobos came close to matching the artistic success of KIKO. Blues, rock, and R&B still form the structural skeleton here, but that skeleton is fleshed out with a diversity of styles that includes cumbia, jazz, norteno, country, and ambient shadings. Yet THE TOWN AND THE CITY never sounds like a collection of genre experiments; the band integrates its eclectic range into an organic sound that is uniquely and wholly their own. The songwriting is top-notch too, with lyrics that focus on community-oriented concerns ("The Valley") and the more universal questions of the heart ("If You Were Only Here Tonight"), and are supported by melodies that are plaintive, haunting, or simply catchy. This album represents one of America's best and longest-running bands working at the height of its creative powers. The simple fact, not stated nearly often enough, is that Los Lobos are one of America's truly great rock & roll bands, and they've been making consistently strong albums since 1984's How Will the Wolf Survive? But 1992's Kiko raised the stakes for Los Lobos' work in the studio with its edgy atmosphere, ambitious production, and expressionistic, purposefully off-kilter textures; it took their music in new and unexpected places with confidence and fire, but they seemed a bit unsure of where they should go down the new trail they blazed. Released in 1996, Colossal Head ...
| | Ryan Oliver Convergence CD (2007)
Springfield
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| | Mikel Erentxun Tres Noches En El Victoria Eugenia CD (2008)
Springfield
$60.55
| | Flynn, Kevin & The Avondale Ramblers Murderer The Thief The Minstrels & The Rest CD (2009)
Springfield
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| | Mark Masri Christmas Is... CD (2009)
Springfield
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