Peter Broderick & Ensemble 0 - Give It To The Sky: Arthur Russell’s Tower of Meaning Expanded

Tracks

A1.Tower of Meaning I
A2. Tower of Meaning II
A3. Tower of Meaning III
A4. Tower of Meaning IV
A5. Corky I / White Jet Set Smoke Trail I
A6. Consideration
B1. Tower of Meaning V
B2. Tower of Meaning VI
B3. Tower of Meaning VII
B4. Tower of Meaning VIII
B5. Tower of Meaning IX / Corky II
C1. Tower of Meaning X
C2. Give It to the Sky
D1. Tower of Meaning XI
D2. Tower of Meaning XII
D3. Corky III
D4. White Jet Smoke Trail II

This autumn, Erased Tapes are set to release ‘Give It to the Sky: Arthur Russell’s Tower of Meaning Expanded’ by composer and producer Peter Broderick and French 12-piece group Ensemble 0; a complete re-recording of Russell’s epic minimalist orchestral composition originally released in 1983.

Released 6th October, ‘Give It to the Sky’ also includes unreleased tracks by Russell which have been restored and re-recorded, resulting in an 80-minute reanimation that threads several lost songs into a meticulous and gorgeous rendering. Ensemble 0 weave in and out of Broderick’s additions. ‘Corky’, a poignant cowboy ballad that Russell never finished, appears, disappears, and reappears three times, the droning exhalations of ‘Tower of Meaning’ making it feel sweeter and sadder. Arriving just after the triumphant halfway mark, the title track is a sublime meditation on mere existence, about staring at some simple rural scene and marcelling at the miracle of being anywhere at all. It is an apt encapsulation of how this entire project feels – a glorious way to hear something that might have seemed familiar as if for the very first time.

Russell was never much for definitive versions, of course. He was constantly rethinking the possibilities of a piece, of wondering what else it could do. ‘Give it to the Sky’ is a powerful affirmation of those principles, using Tower of Meaning’s framework to build outward and upward, to shape something that functions within Russell’s wondrous, paradoxical world. And ‘Give it to the Sky’ is also not intended to be some definitive last word. Broderick and Ensemble 0 speak already of the ways it may shift on stage, of where else it might lead.