Carnival of Soul

Describing Arthur Russell isn’t easy. Throughout a 20 year career that ended in 1992 due to complications from AIDS, he fluidly transitioned between genres, contributing seminal avant-garde, classical, country and disco records created on instruments ranging from cello to synthesizer.

Although most associated with New York City’s Lower East Side music scene of the ‘70s and ‘80s, Russell moved from his native Iowa to San Francisco at age 18 and spent his formative years studying at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and playing cello with Allen Ginsberg on spoken word recordings.

A string of critically celebrated posthumous albums have been released since his death, the latest of which came out today on Audika Records. The 20 songs on “Iowa Dream” span from the early ‘70s to 1985, just before the release of his classic album “World of Echo.” The new record includes several unreleased demos recorded for major labels Mercury and Colombia. Most songs invoke Russell’s quieter side, stylistically similar to the country and folk ballads of 2008’s “Love is Overtaking Me.”

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Opener “Wonder Boy” will pull the heartstrings of long-time fans, with gentle xylophones ringing in unison with Russell’s paper-thin voice. “Barefoot in New York” sounds more like a no-wave experiment, jazzy trombone and disjointed drums underneath a spoken word rant accompanied by a stuttering chorus. “I Kissed The Girl From Outer Space” foreshadows his later disco work, with distorted guitars that chirp like insects, spaceship synths and a strutting bass line.

It’s a testament to Russell’s prolific output that nearly 30 years after his death, a collection of such strong material has still been hiding in vaults. Stream the full album on Spotify, buy a copy on Bandcamp or listen to the lead single below.

Dan Gentile is a digital editor at SFGATE. Email: Dan.Gentile@sfgate.com | Twitter: @Dannosphere