Give It to the Sky: Arthur Russell's Tower of Meaning Expanded Peter Broderick & Ensemble 0

• 1Tower of Meaning I02:12
• 2Tower of Meaning II01:57
• 3Tower of Meaning III07:00
• 4Tower of Meaning IV01:38
• 5Corky I / White Jet Set Smoke Trail I03:42
• 6Consideration03:24
• 7Tower of Meaning V02:09
• 8Tower of Meaning VI02:03
• 9Tower of Meaning VII05:03
• 10Tower of Meaning VIII04:17
• 11Tower of Meaning IX / Corky II06:06
• 12Tower of Meaning X15:31
• 13Give It to the Sky05:16
• 14Tower of Meaning XI02:57
• 15Tower of Meaning XII07:04
• 16Corky III06:20
• 17White Jet Smoke Trail II02:21
• Total Runtime01:19:00

Info for Give It to the Sky: Arthur Russell's Tower of Meaning Expanded

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. ‘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. The album was recorded live as a group in a small theatre in the Southwest of France with minimal overdubs.

For all its wonder and beauty, the musical output of the American cellist, composer, singer, and musical visionary also embodies irony, tragedy, and paradox. Russell famously recorded more than 1,000 hours of tape and left an otherwise-tremendous archive, now part of the New York Public Library. But before his death in 1992, Russell released just three albums under his own name. One of those was ‘Tower of Meaning’ (1983), a score commissioned for and then abandoned by a Robert Wilson production of Euripides' Medea. Composer and pianist Philip Glass helped preserve the music, at least, subsequently releasing a somewhat-thin recording on his own label of just 320 LPs.

A few years into his obsession with Russell’s work, Broderick paid $500 for one of those scant copies (it was remastered and reissued in 2006, followed by several subsequent editions). Still, he didn’t connect with that collector’s item the way he did with so much of Russell’s oeuvre. It felt a tad cold and distant, Russell’s usual tangle of intimacy and mystery perhaps lost in his frustrations with the process or maybe in the recording itself. Ensemble 0 founder Stéphane Garin realized he needed to pursue this project immediately after performing just a bit of the piece. In 2019, the group played a 25-minute chunk as a preamble to ‘Femenine’, the pulsing minimalist masterwork of Julius Eastman (a longtime Russell collaborator, Eastman conducted the initial recording of ‘Tower of Meaning’). He was struck by its splendor and subtle difficulty, the way that Russell shirked dissonance in favor of metric complexity. There was little else like it.

Garin was aware of Broderick’s stints interpreting Russell’s songs on stages and albums for the better part of a decade but also his work collaborating with Russell’s estate to restore previously unreleased tracks for the critically acclaimed album ‘Iowa Dream’ (2019). Broderick naturally did not hesitate when Ensemble 0 asked him to enlist, but he did offer a surprise: Rather than lace ‘Tower of Meaning’ with expected Russell standards, why not incorporate some of his cherished songs that had never found a home?

Early in the process, Ensemble 0 made the decision that they would not seek out Russell’s original esoteric scores, which had already been used to stage ‘Tower of Meaning’ elsewhere. They liked the fact that the recording felt unfinished, allowing them to consider what was missing and how the ever-restless Russell might have modified it over time. Ensemble 0 saxophonist Julien Pontvianne toiled over this task, scrutinizing recordings that Russell had slowed with a tape machine in order to find the melodies and undergirding arrangements.

‘Give It to the Sky’ is supple and dioramic. Pontvianne’s transcriptions add both muscle and nuance to the original recording, with a new low-end depth to balance the trebly tremble. Ensemble 0’s layers are as intricate as they are expertly rendered, the obfuscation of that rare Glass release replaced by a clarity that lets you peer inside this mesmeric music. New ideas appear, suggesting ‘Tower of Meaning’ as the scaffolding to something greater.

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.

Peter Broderick, voice, violin, acoustic guitar, drum kit
Pandora Burrus, french horn
Sylvain Chauveau, harmonium, ebow guitar, radio static
Vianney Desplantes, euphonium
Jozef Dumoulin, piano, synthesizer
Júlia Gállego Ronda, flute
Stéphane Garin, vibraphone, glockenspiel, percussion
Amélie Grould, vibraphone
Barbara Hünninger, viola da gamba
Tomoko Katsura, violin
Fanny Meteier, tuba
Lucas Pizzini, tape processing
Julien Pontvianne, tenor saxophone

Peter Broderick
Born in 1987, Peter Broderick is an American-born multi-instrumentalist and singer, brought up in a musical household in Oregon. In his later teenage years he became entwined in the indie folk scene in Portland, recording for the likes of M. Ward, Laura Gibson and Dolorean.

2007 saw Broderick move across the ocean to Denmark, where he began a long collaboration with the band Efterklang, touring the world with them for the next five years. Meanwhile he recorded several albums of solo material, ranging from the sparse classical compositions of his debut album Float to the homemade folk music on Home — constantly experimenting with different musical genres, and also being commissioned to write music for several films and contemporary dance works. He then lived in Berlin for several years where he met and collaborated with many like-minded artists including German pianist Nils Frahm under the name Oliveray and Englishman Greg Haines as Greg Gives Peter Space.

Now known as one of the label’s veteran recording artist, Broderick joined Erased Tapes with his wanderings into the realms of film, dance and documentary scores. 2009’s Music For Falling From Trees, a 30-minute piece in seven sections, was created for a contemporary dance by London-based choreographer Adrienne Hart at Neon Dance. It was followed by Music For Congregation in 2010 and his classic score Music For Confluence, created in 2011 for Jennifer Anderson and Vernon Lott’s spell binding documentary film on five unsolved murders in Idaho.

Held together by a dialogue of voices, his 2012 album These Walls Of Mine reveals Peter’s innermost thoughts in an exploration from gospel and soul to spoken word, beatboxing and rap. In 2013 he re-located back to America, living at the Pacific Ocean near where he grew up. Returning to his home where his musical journey began, Peter completed the circle with the release of Float 2013. Encouraged by label founder Robert Raths the album was given a “second chance“ with the help of Nils Frahm who remastered the record.

Inspired by John Cage‘s so-called mesostics, his 2016 album Partners saw Peter experiment with chance, surrendering an entire song’s composition to the roll of dice in a series of voice and piano recordings. The composer closed the year with his equally exceptional Grunewald recordings — paying homage to the discrete yet majestic Grunewald Church, situated on the outskirts of Berlin, that's become a haven for an entire generation of contemporary composers.

2017 marked the birth of Allred & Broderick — a new duo project between Broderick and his musical partner David Allred.

In 2020 he surprised the world with a drop release of Blackberry, his first vocal based album in over five years, followed by the satellite release The Wind That Shakes The Bramble in 2021 — containing additional work from the same sessions, as well as a beautiful two-part rework from Bing & Ruth and the new 22-minute title track; an expansive and meditative ambient odyssey, a balm for the baffling chaos of the current era.

In August 2022 Peter announces the release of Piano Works Vol. 1 (Floating in Tucker’s Basement) — a new comprehensive album of solo piano recordings. Shining a light on the artist’s ongoing piano-based compositions, this release offers an opportunity to celebrate his more intimate work.

Peter continues to travel the world, performing solo piano concerts and collaborating with a vast array of different musicians and artists.

This album contains no booklet.