Customer Reviews

Calling Out of Context

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

forget the inelegant and lazy analogy ("nick drake meets new order"...can that mean anything?) this is breath-taking, life affirming stuff. warm and contemplative...and probably nothing like you've ever heard before.

I came across the name Arthur Russell while doing a random search on the internet for what I like to call "hypnotic, uplifting music." After hearing some of the short samples, I decided to take the plunge and purchase 'Calling Out of Context.' It proved to be one of the best music purchases I had made in a long time.

Arthur Russell was a very talented innovator and performer, and this album is a testament to his talents. This is perfect music to lose yourself in, for those times when you want to be transported to a very positive and sensual place. His soothing voice will guide you into a state of bliss that mere words can't describe.

Long live the music and memory of Arthur Russell.

This is music to listen to to clean all the detritus of too many bad songs out of your head. If you are feeling really sick of pop-indy reinvention of the wheel, this is something fresh and different, at times beautiful. These are old recordings but the songs are still just so much more innovative and interesting than most of what is being made today. Discover Arthur Russell!

it wasn't until i let the album play uninterrupted a second time around that i truly understood what i was hearing. this is an unquestionably great record, sonically unique, beautiful, and overbrimming with playful exuberance.

Seriously, this is incredible stuff. Took me a listen or two, but then all of a sudden I tumbled into Arthur Russell's world, and am stupefied that music could be so personal, so ecstatic, so romantic, and at the same time curiously driving...it has a symphonic radiance to it with a depth and lustre that is almost matchless. Not since Van Morrison's Astral Weeks has an album affected me so deeply. Makes me happy to be alive.

Baffled by the great reviews here - there were only two tracks I could stand to play all the way through! Pedestrian themes, elementary melodies, extremely tiresome electronic "drums" and other instrumentation, and no hint of this great cellist I was led to expect. Someone should have told this guy he can't sing. Sorry to be so down on what others seem to love, but it has gone straight into the Goodwill bag after one play. Not for lovers of melodic pop or of classical. Not sure who it's for, frankly. Seemed like the music of someone who doesn't get out nearly enough and listens only to what's in his own head.