Not exactly a household name, Arthur Russell is one of the most influential musicians and producers to emerge from the downtown New York music scene of the 70s and 80s, a new book on him entitled “Hold On To Your Dreams”by Tim Lawrence has just been released and to celebrate the Italian launch Stussy have created a special pack featuring an exclusive t-shirt. Limited to only 50 editions the shirt features artwork from one of the composers many releases. It will be available at Stussy Milan from December 16th, where there will also be a photographic exhibition dedicated to this great man
Hugely prolific Russell’s work spanned a mass of genre’s from classical to disco via indie, punk, electro, hip-hop and modern contemporary music. He was responsible for massive disco hits like “it’s all over my face” by Loose Joints and ‘treehouse” by Indian Ocean and he was a key player in The Loft and Paradise Garage disco scenes that would later go on to spawn house and disco. Not content with success on the dancefloor the classically trained cellist also worked with modern contemporary classical and minimalist composers such as Philip Glass as well as new wave and punk acts like Talking Heads, the Modern Lovers and Jah Wobble. His ground breaking work in bringing the avant garde into popular music can still be felt can still be felt today in the music from acts like LCD Soundsytem, Aphex Twin, Animal Collectie and Franz Ferdinand and in diverse and forward thinking record labels like Warp, Def Jux, Rough Trade and DFA.
In 2008 film maker Matt Wolf released “Wild Combination” a documentary on Arthur Russell, which played to great acclaim at many of the major film festivals across the globe. Check out the trailer below.
Source: Slam Jam
