Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell

This was the year I, along with just about everybody else, discovered the amazing avant-garde dance music of Arthur Rusell thanks to Audika's essential reissues. Russell's distinctive recordings, created mostly in the '70s and '80s, are remarkable as much for their restistance to aging as their hypnotic beauty. Think later Talk Talk with tribal Eno-ness underneath.

If you're already a fan, or if you are simply open to discovering a new artist through the powerful experience of documentary filmmaking at its most gorgeous and inspired, I highly recommend Matt Wolf's film Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell. The visual style matches effortlessly with the delicate gauze of Russell's compositions and, music aside, Russell's story of early alienation and later self-discovery within a New York art community is worth knowing.

As a musician, this got me thinking about other music documentaries that have inspired me to be a better artist. Five others came to mind:

Keith Jarrett: Art of Improvisation - I'm not that much of a Jarrett fan (though I do have a few extraordinary pieces of his) but that was beside the point as I watched this film. If a movie can really examine the large concepts of musical focus and exploration, this does. I am convinced I played better after seeing this.

Fearless Freaks (Flaming Lips doc.) - This humanized and demystified a truly eccentric group which, strangely, made their genius seem larger.

Westway to the World (Clash doc.) - I wasn't a fan of them until I saw this. It also did a great job of bringing their fascination with dub across.

Moog - Bog Moog is most famous for his early synthesizer inventions but less known for his work with Theremins. This documentary, released shortly after his death, spends a surprising amount of time exploring Moog's ideas about the spooky instruments, which consumed Moog in his later years and which he felt were the most expressive instrument ever created. Moog's restlessly fun and inventive spirit is catchy and aesthetically this film is just as appealing.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston - I was put off by Johnsonton's self-awareness of his own mythology of dysfunction and, watching him play up to it in this documentary exploring his music and personality disorder, I felt as if I was contributing to his Narcisism. Still, they don't make documentaries more thoughtful or beautiful than this.