thoughtful review of a new book on Arthur Russell

Russell allowed himself, helplessly, to be consumed with the process of music making, indifferent to the product. He recoiled from any final version of a composition for fear it would preclude all its other potential manifestations. As Lawrence puts it, a final version of a song “would become static and therefore experience a form of death.” According to the composer and writer Ned Sublette, Russell “couldn’t turn his back on the beauty of unexplored possibilities.” There’s a nobility to that, but it also helps explain the lack of recognition beyond his cult...