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.