A final bow

A posthumous release offers a hint of the diverse and prolific work of New York underground figure and cellist Arthur Russell.

- GRAHAM REID

PICTURE OF BUNNY RABBIT, by Arthur Russell

In 1992, the Point Music label, founded by New York contemporary classical composer Philip Glass, launched with John Moran's opera about Charles Manson's murderous "family".

"In hindsight, probably a mistake," laughed Point's Rory Johnston, in Auckland two years later for Jaz Coleman's Us and Them: Symphonic Pink Floyd concert, subsequently recorded with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Point.

The label had also released Glass's Low Symphony, based on the music of David Bowie and Brian Eno, the Brazilian group Uakti playing handmade instruments, and Gavin Bryars' Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet with Tom Waits, a re-recording of a mesmerising work on Eno's Obscure label.

All small sellers, although, to be fair to the largely indifferent public, these artists were - in the deathless words of Spinal Tap manager Ian Faith, "selective about their audience".