Release Date: 13th May 2022
"‘Instrumentals’: Remastered double LP with 12 page booklet including liner notes by Tim Lawrence, Ernie Brooks and Arthur Russell. Before Disco, and before the transcendent echoes, Arthur studied to be a composer. His journey began in 1972, running away from his home in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Heading west to Northern California, Arthur studied Indian classical composition at the Ali Akbar Khan College of Music followed by Western orchestral music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, before ending two years later in New York at the Manhattan School of Music. Traversing the popular and the serious, Arthur composed ‘Instrumentals’ in 1974, inspired by the photography of his Buddhist teacher, Yuko Nonomura, as Arthur described, “I was awakened, or re-awakened to the bright-sound and magical qualities of the bubblegum and easy-listening currents in American popular music.” Initially intended to be performed in one 48 hour cycle, ‘Instrumentals’ was in fact only performed a handful of times as a work in progress."
