The Sleeping Bag Sessions by Arthur Russell
LABEL: Warlock

“Russell’s mercurial temperament, the disco auteur-cum-
minimalist composer formed Sleeping Bag Records—
the name was an in-joke allusion to James Brown’s
'Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag'...”

The Arthur Russell renaissance that began with much fanfare in 2004 and peaked with last year’s critically-acclaimed documentary Wild Combination appears to have troughed in recent months, and it’s easy to see why. Although Tim Lawrence’s forthcoming Hold On To Your Dreams will be the best music bio to hit a Barnes & Noble near you since Howard Sounes’s meticulously researched 2001 tome on Bob Dylan, revelatory articles in Out and Wax Poetics have laid the charmingly diaphanous portrait proffered by World of Echo completely bare. Pot-addled and obstreperously paranoid, prone to philandering around on his adoring boyfriend and feuding with his closest friends, Russell’s famed Oskaloosan naivety was a front for eccentricities on par with those of Woody Allen or Lee Perry. Hardly a precious conduit to the luminiferous, Russell was as human as his listeners. And The Sleeping Bag Sessions—an ad hoc compilation of rarities, alternative mixes, and productions for other artists—will hopefully counteract the skeptics, portraying the artist at his most playful and possessed.

After nearly seven years of on-again/off-again record deals (the most enduring with Sire Records) that invariably fell victim to Russell’s mercurial temperament, the disco auteur-cum-minimalist composer formed Sleeping Bag Records—the name was an in-joke allusion to James Brown’s “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag”—with entrepreneur Will Socolov in 1982. The duo hit minor paydirt with Francois Kevorkian’s seminal remix of Russell’s “Go Bang!”, but the track was simply too outré for mainstream dance and R&B audiences in the thrall of “Thriller”. Three follow-up singles produced and written by Russell (the stillborn Nicky Siano collaboration “Tiger Stripes”; “Tell You Today”, a holdover from the sessions that spawned “Is It All Over My Face”; and Larry Levan’s dispossessed remix of “In the Cornbelt”) failed to make any money for the company, and a dejected Socolov turned to the lucrative waters of hip-hop for inspiration. Russell’s role in the company gradually eroded to the point where he divested himself financially, but the twosome remained on good terms, briefly reuniting in 1986 for the avant-dance epic “Schoolbell/Treehouse”.

The latter song—recorded concurrently with World of Echo and capturing the inimitable trifecta of Russell, fellow postminimalist Peter Zummo, and the legendary remixer Walter Gibbons at new heights of collective improvisation—will appeal to most fans of that watershed album. Over a bed of tribal drums, intermittent keyboards, and distorted cello, mantra vocals point a signpost to a dance space that never was—one as indebted to Ravi Shankar and gamelan orchestras as it is to La Monte Young and David Mancuso. With Russell reportedly fond of 808 State and the early productions of William Orbit as he slid into his final battle with AIDS in the early 90s, we can only wonder where this visionary aesthetic would have taken vanguard dancers well into the nineties.

“On the other hand, Russell’s productions for other artists find him straining to conform to commerciality while sacrificing the sui generis that makes songs like 'Let’s Go Swimming' and 'Springfield' so compelling in the first place.”

For collectors, there is the anachronistic Gibbons remix of “Go Bang!” that surfaced in Japanese collector circles some years back. Recorded on the fly in the mid-to-late 80s, it serves as a disjointed corollary to the Kevorkian remix and will likely turn off those who are unfamiliar with Gibbons’s deconstructionist oeuvre (check out the 2004 Salsoul compilation Mixed with Love for an overview of his radical disco remixes). On the other hand, Russell’s productions for other artists find him straining to conform to commerciality while sacrificing the sui generis that makes songs like “Let’s Go Swimming” and “Springfield” so compelling in the first place. Bootsy Collins’s characteristically florid bass withers on his mix of the Jerry Harrison collaboration “5 Minutes”, while “Radio Rhythm” is a misguided attempt at dance by iconoclastic musicologist Ned Sublette (best known for penning “Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other”).  

Despite these pitfalls, The Sleeping Bag Sessions complements The World of Arthur Russell as an essential introduction to a man who will be ranked in the not-so-distant future among the most important songwriters, composers, and producers of the 20th Century. There are rough patches—for every Annie Hall, after all, there is an Interiors—but such is the price of being shamelessly prolific. Russell’s cult will continue to endure as long as there are dreamers, and so will his music.


REVIEWED BY SEAN MURPHY
SEAN'S 3 FAVORITE TRACKS: “Schoolbell/Treehouse” • “Go Bang” (Gibbons mix) • “Tiger Stripes”
Read more by Sean Murphy on his blog, Brooklyn Music


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