24 - 24 Music

We Say...

Review by Tim Lawrence

If one album could be said to capture the frightening inventiveness and dynamism of the "downtown era" — think the rise of post-serial new music, underground disco, loft jazz, new wave, no wave and Baker-Bambaataa electro in downtown New York between 1970 and 1984 — surely it's 24-24 Music. The debut release on Sleeping Bag, the album was the brainchild of Arthur Russell, who co-founded the label while performing and recording across a barely fathomable range of scenes and settings. If the anti-purist Philip Glass, Peter Gordon, Laurie Anderson et al were the most prominent frontrunners in the race to sonic bastardisation during the peak of the downtown era, the comparatively anonymous Russell was every bit as daring, and 24-24 Music reveals how his mix-and-match ethos has stood the test of time.

Released under the studio moniker of Dinosaur L at the end of 1981, 24-24 Music featured Russell working alongside a mix of handpicked composer-musicians and disco groove maestros. The recording sessions began with Russell handing out conceptual scores filled with staves and coloured Cagean parabolas, but at every opportunity the musicians were encouraged to improvise. When the tracks were down, Russell made a copy of the tape and toyed with the infinite possibilities of 24-track editing, thus the title of the album. The final release ushered reverberating rock guitars, jazz-oriented keyboards, surreal operatic vocals and other "mutant" elements into the post-disco mix. "Go Bang! #5," the outstanding track, was later given a legendary remix by François Kevorkian. Amidst the chaos, a musical democracy was born.