Of all the posthumous recordings in Arthur Russell's voluminous legacy, the Dinosaur L recordings from 1981, titled 24-24 Music on the original Sleeping Bag Records imprint, are the most delightful to listen to. While it's true in one way they are not the most musically sophisticated of his many recordings -- and this is not a disclaimer -- in another way they are. Who ever heard of improvisational disco in 1981? The tunes here (at the time they were issued simply with numbered titles, and here are restored to their original names) are a series of preprogrammed beats, which change every 24 bars, hence the title of the album. The band (which included the Ingram Family, James, Timmy, William, and of course Butch, in the rhythm section) had to improvise everything else on top of the beats: from guitar lines, horns, vocals, keyboard vamps, basslines, all of it! The Ingrams were an established act, and had worked with Russell and Will Socolov on the Loose Joints sessions the year before and were used to Russell's wonderfully inventive quirks. What follows here is a wonderful intersection of funk, disco, downtown and big biz funk improv, no wave playfulness, and (sometimes) monotonous drum loops that create backdrops for people either to get busy or get lost. Some of the other notables who appeared on these sessions were saxophonist Peter Gordon, organist/vocalist Julius Eastman; singer Jill Kroesen; trombone boss Peter Zummo, bassist Wilbur Bascomb, Jr., conguero Mustafa Khaliq Ahmed, guitarists Larry Saltzman, William Ingram, Ed Tomney, and Denise Mercedes. Many of these cuts were issued as 12" singles, such as "#1" ("You're Gonna Be Clean on Your Bean"); "#3" ("In the Corn Belt"), which has faux operatic vocals by a male baritone impersonating a tenor; "#5" ("Go Bang"), and so on. There is no way to actually describe what a blast this is to slap on the box and let it rip. In addition to the original tracks, Sleeping Bag and their parent company Traffic have provided three bonus tracks on this mix: the Francois Kevorkian remix of "Go Bang," the Larry Levan remix of "In the Corn Belt," and a strange extended edit of "Go Bang!," called the "Thank You Arthur Edit." The weird and wonderful thing is that it's a full minute longer than the full version! There is so much spacy groove here that this disc is simply impossible to ignore if you are a fan of either Russell, strange space funk, sci-fi disco, shambolic jazz, and a good time. Get it.". ****1/2
A1 #1 (You're Gonna Be Clean On Your Bean)
A2 #5 (Go Bang!)
A3 #2 (No, Thank You)
B1 #7
B2 #3 (In The Corn Belt)
B3 #6 (Get Set)
C1 Clean On Your Bean #1
C2 #5 (Go Bang!) (Francois K Mix)
D1 Go Bang! (Thank You Arthur Edit)
D2 In The Corn Belt (Larry Levan Mix)
