Arthur Russell
The World Of Arthur Russell

It happens that twice a year (coinciding with colds from seasonal changes) swarms of fashion-designer-locusts fly over the Alps to attend a fair with an exotic name suggesting exclusivity and chic: Première Vision... Ha!
In reality, as with all fairs, something is bought and sold, in this case, fabrics.
It happens that while they're at it, these ultra-trendy figures wander around Paris in search of absolute novelties and, attracted like bees to honey (or flies to... well), arrive at a "legendary" store, capable like few others of picking up the most disparate little things, like Japanese water bottles, sanctifying them with a stay on the golden shelves, and then reselling them at double or triple the price.

So, I've told you this tragic tale just to explain where this album came from, which landed on the table of an old fox who usually listens to "respiri piano..." "...mia, torna a casa tua..." and little else. So intrigued by the novelty, I look at this alien CD and read: "The World Of Arthur Russell".
I don't know who Arthur Russell is! I search around a bit and discover that Arthur Russell was a musician from the New York scene of the '70s/'80s who composed by mixing various genres of music: from blues to dance, from folk to new wave, from pop to classical... a visionary forerunner of musical crossover. Unfortunately, most of his recordings (something like 800 tapes) were found after his death, at forty, in '92.
In truth, this is a collection of his most danceable tracks remixed by such Gibbons and Kerkovian, a pleasant soft-dance disc playable even while sitting at a desk or not. But it made me want to listen to more of Arthur's work to understand why someone called him "A Nick Drake who lived long enough to make albums with New Order."
Wonder if the original recordings can be found somewhere... maybe online, far away from the golden shelves...