Album of the Week: Arthur Russell – Open Vocal Phrases Where Songs Come In and Out (Live 12/20/1985)
Staff Review
This week sees the release of a previously unheard complete live set by singer, musician, and composer Arthur Russell. Renowned for his singularly inventive and eclectic output, Russell, who died of AIDS-related illnesses in 1992, left behind a remarkable catalogue that traversed, and often seamlessly blended, avant-garde composition, folk, dance, and pop.
Over the past two decades, a series of archival releases has helped illuminate the full scope of his artistry. Key highlights include Corn (2015), Iowa Dream (2019), and the superb Picture of Bunny Rabbit (2023), alongside essential reissues of his magnum opus World of Echo (1986), and compilations Calling Out of Context (2004) and Another Thought (1994). The latest entry in this growing body of posthumous work is Open Vocal Phrases Where Songs Come In and Out (Live 12/20/1985).
At its most powerful, Russell’s music is startlingly intimate, unguarded to the point of feeling almost confrontational. The raw emotional vulnerability he channels can be disarming, even for seasoned listeners. There’s something sacred, sublime, and deeply spiritual about his sound, and Open Vocal Phrases… stands as one of the most compelling documents of that power.
Recorded live at Phil Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York, the album offers more than just a captivating performance, it provides a rare window into Russell’s creative process. Accompanied by cello, harmonica, and a range of percussive instruments, he performs seven pieces that flow seamlessly into one another, shifting between song, sketch, idea, and improvisation. As a listener, you gain a deeper understanding of Russell as an artist, someone whose work always seemed in motion, never quite complete. His music feels less like a finished product and more like a living process. One meant to continue, to evolve, to unfold. Where it might have led is unknowable due to his untimely death but this recording offers a compelling glimpse of that path as it was in progress.
The set opens with a hypnotic performance of Tower of Meaning / Rabbit’s Ear / Home Away from Home, an early version of material that would later appear on World of Echo (1986). Tracks like All-Boy-All-Girl / Tiger Stripes / You Can’t Hold Me Down offer a pastoral, playful journey into the lighter corners of Russell’s musical landscape. Later pieces, Hiding Your Presents From You / School Bell and Too Early To Tell, disrupt the earlier serenity with bubbling distortion and percussive electronic-like rhythms, hinting at a future-forward, still-unrealised electronic evolution of folk music.
Every murmur, shout, and croon seems to move through Russell from another realm. This is real-time magic, that one imagines may be both flickering and elusive, yet on this night, it is perfectly captured. At its core, Open Vocal Phrases… is a luminous and singular mutation of a music of the soul, performed with complete disregard for audience or expectation. A quality that defines its brilliance.
On Open Vocal Phrases…, Russell is utterly at one with his art, conjuring, responding, and reshaping sound in the moment. It’s the work of an artist fully attuned to their vision, gently but purposefully carving out a singular creative path, glowing with confidence, and alive with a spellbinding vulnerability
