World Of Echo

About

It is perhaps a fool’s errand to pluck one defining project from Arthur Russell’s vast, multidimensional musical practice, but of all his recordings <i>World of Echo</i> is certainly his most idiosyncratic and personal. Constructed only of voice, cello, and “echoes” (as they are literally accredited in the liner notes), the album unfurls an entire harmonic universe from these simple element, complex forms arising from chains of effects applied to the subtlest of murmurations and gesture. Through this highly experimental approach arises something boundle, an illusionary refraction of virtuosity that casts his instrument and voice into a hall of mirrors which simultaneously obfuscates and accentuates its meaning. Recorded with help from famed minimalist composer Phil Niblock, the album was first conceptualized through rigorous home experimentation intertwined deeply with his Buddhist meditation practice, further refined through live performances at Niblock’s loft and other avant-garde spaces in New York. By overlapping and modulating different delays and reverbs simultaneously, Russell envisioned “different kinds of echo coexisting, like plants growing within plant,” nested hyper-real spaces telescoping in and out within each other and casting his cello’s airy, <i>sul ponticello</i> bowing and percussive <i>pizzicato</i> slaps into virtual space. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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