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The Wild Life

Arthur Russell was a gay cellist, disco artist and folk singer who made waves in the New York underground scene in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, recording everything from Paradise Garage anthems to avant-garde instrumentals and dead-earnest folk music. Exalted by such peers as Philip Glass and David Byrne, he was otherwise unsung up to and past his death from AIDS in 1992. Thankfully, his lover kept his tape vault in good care, allowing the likes of LCD Soundsystem, Hercules and Love Affair and Tracey Thorn to slowly catch up and turn Russell into a pop saint.

Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell is a long-overdue documentary (on DVD today) that manages to feel right on time in a year when his legacy has been honored onstage (The Kitchen’s tribute last spring) and preserved on CD (the newly released Love Is Overtaking Me). It’s not the definitive story, per se; instead, it’s an impressionist portrait of Russell’s life — abstract images of cornfields, cassette tapes, and sunlight on the Hudson portray an open-hearted man who was tirelessly creative. All impulse, he rarely finished projects. Similarly‚ Wild Combination is an intriguing film that offers some sketches but lets us fill in the details.

Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell is available today on DVD from Plexifilm.