Wild Combination Mirrors the Dreaminess of Arthur Russell’s Music on Film

In our new weekly series, we’ll be revisiting some of our favorite music movies—from artist docs and concert films to biopics and fictional music flicks—that are available to stream or rent.

The voice could belong to an angel. The distorted cello whir might be whale song, a suspicion aided by the bubbling blue on-screen. The words are elusive, something about watching out of his ear. Hearing but not understanding. Seeing the clouds but not the sky. The lens follows a trail of ribbon and fixes on a floating cassette: sunken treasure.

The opening titles of the 2008 documentary Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell evoke a particular experience of connecting with the late musician’s work. In the 2000s, the term “music discovery” had yet to be co-opted by streaming services, and Arthur Russell’s work was newly available through re-releases and online file-sharing. From the jump, Wild Combination passes along the epiphany of hearing his music for the first time, unmediated by the era’s traditional machinery of radio and MTV.

The film arrived several years into Russell’s posthumous resurgence. In 2004, three releases—the career-spanning World of Arthur Russell compilation, the Calling Out of Context outtakes collection, and a reissue of 1986’s World of Echo—helped introduce his work to a new generation of listeners and cemented his unrivaled status among critics. His reappreciation coincided with mounting nostalgia for the late ’70s/early ’80s downtown NYC scene, and his reputation as a deep-eclectic underdog resonated with ’00s indie culture, but there was more to Russell’s appeal. Here was someone whose songs sounded surreally beautiful, intimate yet alien, slathered in echo like he was singing underwater.

A dreamy ode, Wild Combination succeeds most at capturing this uncanny allure. The film hits home because it’s as earthly as it is ethereal, much like Russell’s loveliest songs. It loosely follows the chronology of his life and rediscovery, a story that’s more widely known now but never ceases to be a compelling one. After growing up acne-scarred and secretly gay in small-town Iowa, he ran away in the late ’60s to San Francisco, where he eventually landed in a Buddhist commune. He moved to New York City in 1973 and became enmeshed in the thriving downtown arts community. He showed little regard for hierarchy or genre, spanning disco, new wave, folk, classical, and experimental music. And he was such a perfectionist that some of his best music was unreleased when he died in 1992 from HIV/AIDS complications, at just 40 years old.

Without interview footage of Russell himself, first-time director Matt Wolf relied on grainy shots of Iowa and New York, archival performance clips, and interviews with those close to Russell. The doc grounds itself in conversations with his parents and his longtime domestic partner, Tom Lee. (“A lot of this is Tom’s story,” Wolf has said.) The couple’s relationship, starting with a distant glance on St. Mark’s Place in the late ’70s, is touching and enduring; we see Lee gushing over Russell’s unreleased recordings long after his passing. But Russell’s parents are Wild Combination’s quiet stars. Their loving reminiscences of “Charley,” as they called him, slowly growing apart from his conventional Midwest upbringing add an all-too-human warmth. His father’s recollection of Russell’s last words is too heartbreaking to spoil.

In addition to the film’s more personal insights, you get the Arthur Russell career highlight reel: An oft-quoted clip of (former collaborator) Allen Ginsberg eulogizing Russell’s “Buddhist bubblegum” ambitions; Philip Glass speaking to his contrarian role in the avant-garde world surrounding The Kitchen; a major-label A&R scout’s confused notes about his music (“Who knows what this guy is up to”); remembrances of him fixating on tiny flaws in recordings even while dancefloor crowds went wild; footage of Russell playing with the Talking Heads, with whom he recorded a version of their hit “Psycho Killer.”

Wild Combination is worth a watch for its music alone, particularly the clips of Russell playing long-unreleased songs. Some are disarmingly stark and striking, like the black-and-white footage of him performing early track “You Did It Yourself.” Other clips tease out his humor: “Grown-ups are crazy,” he deadpans during a performance of “Calling All Kids,” a robot-funk epic. The film also occasionally breaks from its narrative to relish in studio tracks, accompanied by impressionist images. It’s all a welcome bird’s-eye view of Russell’s vast catalog.

But as is often the case with glowing artist docs, Wild Combination is just one portrait of a multi-faceted person. In the years before and since the film, there have been more complicated revelations about Russell not hinted at here. A 2018 memoir by the late novelist Kevin Killian depicts him as a struggling musician who “saw himself as basically straight, straight if weak and prone to stumbling.” Former collaborator Steven Hall, who’s interviewed in Wild Combination, has said elsewhere that when they first met, Russell propositioned him for sex. His ties to LGBTQ culture during his lifetime are under-explored. It’s also frankly glaring how many of the interviewees in the film are white men, considering the diversity of the downtown club scene Russell frequented.

In a perfect world, Wild Combination would have a slightly wider scope—ideally one that would do more to combat the Difficult Male Genius narrative that looms. Russell’s classical-music training in San Francisco and New York is conveniently glossed over, while the notion of him as someone great who could never finish anything is played up (he did release four albums while alive, plus two with his band the Necessaries and various dance singles). His obscurity in his own time can be overstated, too—industry kingmaker John Hammond once likened Russell to Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Billie Holiday, after all. Wild Combination doesn’t shy away from the fact that he could be extraordinarily difficult—getting himself fired from big opportunities, storming out of a tour van headed into the Holland Tunnel—but often these moments feel easily excused by proclamations of his genius.

In author Tim Lawrence’s 2009 Russell biography, a scholarly but similarly fervent account, another former collaborator compares him to Pablo Picasso. For those who knew the reference, or even just Russell’s relentless tinkering, it was strangely fitting when his World of Echo song “Answers Me” was sampled on Kanye West’s 2016 album The Life of Pablo, forever a work in progress. But for many other Russell fans, it was just plain strange to hear his gently warped voice and cello looped throughout “30 Hours” as West ran through his day, shit-talked exes, and chronicled his open marriage to one of the world’s most well-known celebrities. It’s hard to think of someone as much of a secret after a Kanye cosign.

Now that Russell is considered an indie staple, there are so many different routes to finding his music. I could’ve sworn I first encountered him through a mid-’00s Pitchfork track review of “A Little Lost,” though one never seems to have existed. However I came to his lonesome cello and otherworldly singing—“I’m so unfinished,” he purrs on the song—I immediately knew I wanted to hear more. Watching Wild Combination, you might feel the same. It’s a strong starting point that conveys the impressive breadth and intangible magic of his music. Arthur Russell gives us hope that we’re all unfinished, like works in progress waiting to be discovered. Like seeing the clouds but not the sky.

Stream Wild Combination on Amazon Prime or Tubi, rent on iTunes or YouTube

Further viewing: Maestro (stream on YouTube, rent on Netflix DVD), Basquiat (rent on Amazon, Vudu, or YouTube)

(Pitchfork earns a commission from purchases made through affiliate links on our site.)

Originally Appeared on Pitchfork