Altered Zones

Check out this extensive, formally twisted and amazingly insightful "long-lost" interview with avant-everything composer Arthur Russell, transcribed from an April 1987 edition of UK magazine Melody Maker. He and interviewer Frank Owen discuss the idea of "the vernacular" in music, Russell's doomed attempt at becoming a fashion mogul as a young man in the East Village, and the conceptual importance of repetition in his work. In the excerpt below, the late artist recalls an exchange he had with composition teacher Charles Wuorinen, a proponent of "the type of music that had beginnings, middles and ends in abundance."

Arthur: "I said to him the thing that excited me about the piece was that you could pick up the needle anywhere and put it down and it always sounded the same. Not exactly the same, but you could plug into it for as long as you liked, then plug out and then plug back in again without losing anything essential unlike narrative music where your attention is required from beginning to end. He turned to me and said , 'That's the most unattractive thing I've ever heard.'" ["Echo Beach"; Melody Maker; April 11, 1987]

Read the full interview here