In a recent memoir of their brief affair, the late poet Kevin Killian said Russell’s lyrics were “written right on the very edge of English,” which resonates through Iowa Dream’s quotidian images: riding bikes, driving cars, laying in the grass. Russell’s vocal turns on “Follow You” are almost painfully gorgeous, as if embodying the “place in the sun a sailboat on the sea” he sings of. He sounds like someone you might know, a friend speaking to you, which is perhaps why so many listeners seem to think they do, sure their personal Russell connection is special. As ever, it’s Russell’s voice-clear, graceful, often conversational, with a kind of humility-that makes his music feel like a potential source of enlightenment, no matter the style. But like those warm records, Iowa Dream finds Russell in his singularly comforting singer-songwriter mode: a collection of teardrop piano ballads, sunstruck acoustic songs, and delightfully bewildering studio excursions. Unlike the understated beats and pop deconstructions of Calling Out of Context, or the plainspoken country-pop of Love Is Overtaking Me, the 19 tracks of Iowa Dream are presented as demos. ![]() ![]() Iowa Dream is the latest posthumous Russell release, and it feels in some ways like one of the truest. “Being sad is not a crime,” Russell sang on “Love Comes Back.” His life makes it believable. Through it all, Russell has become a talismanic shorthand for a superpower across time: His name means a way to persevere in accordance with a misfit’s heart and a boundless mind. ![]() He foresaw the contemporary notion that we need not subscribe to the tyrannies of genre. Russell suggested punk could be art and pop could be minimalism. He was Allen Ginsberg’s accompanist he is believed, by biographer Tim Lawrence, to have played the spiritual music of Alice Coltrane in her touring band. Russell was a dance-music innovator who sang of “losing my taste for the nightlife.” He used his cello to create a wall-of-sound equally ecstatic and depressive those who knew him said he quoted ABBA lyrics like romantic poetry.
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