Arthur Russell: Love Is Overtaking Me

Arthur Russell was a master musician with an

impressive ear for everything from mutant disco to boppy pop to solo cello

koans, but most devastating of his many devastating attributes was his voice.

It's devastating not only because he's gone—he died of AIDS-related

illness in 1992—but also because he always sounded so piercing and

intimate that he could make listeners shy and sheepish, no matter the context.

His voice sounds bare and unadorned on Love Is Overtaking Me, another terrific

offering to add to the Russell reissues and compilations that have piled up

over the past few years.

This one collects unreleased songs that slot

somewhere in a realm triangulated by folk, country, and '80s college-rock.

"Close My Eyes" finds Russell singing about corn and strumming a guitar to

startling emotional effect, while the buoyant "Hey! How Does Everybody Know"

features him tossing through enough warm-hearted hooks and melodies to power

four or five different pop songs. Most of the recordings are rough, drawn from

tapes in Russell's legendarily big archive of unfinished stuff. But the

songs—and especially their alternately playful, pained, and purposeful

delivery—sell themselves.