I first got to know about Arthur Russell after my friend Arno also known nas DJ Boats told me about the documentary about his life called ‘Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell’.

Arthur Russell was an amazing musician and produced a bunch of famous experimental disco songs under aliases like Dinosaur L, Loose Joints and more in the seventies. You can watch this documentary for free on fourthree.boilerroom.tv here. His songs were played in the first real dance clubs in New York like The Gallery and the Paradise Garage by pioneering DJ’s like Nicky Siano and Larry Levan.

Arthur even produced a song with Nicky SIano called ‘Kiss Me Again’.

You can watch a great interview with Nicky Siano on Youtube where he talks about his collaboration with Arthur and the early beginnings of the Lower Manhattan Club Scene ‘where it all started’ for dance music as we know it today.

There;’s also some really interesting videos and documentaries about the New York club scene in the seventies that’ll undoubtedly be featured in later blogposts 😉

On my DJ Tracksuit Instagram I made a little post about ‘The World of Arthur Russell’ and added 2 short videos of my favourite tracks ‘Go Bang’ and ‘Is it All Over My Face’. If you’re into disco music like me you probably know these tracks or have heard them play in clubs or at festivals.

On the Discogs page you can find the full tracklist and more Youtube videos. I highly recommend checking out the whole album – there’s not a bad song on it – and the rest of Arthur Russell’s released music. Sadly he had a hard time finishing his work and he died during the AIDS-crisis which had a big impact on the (Gay) dance music and club scene in New York 🙁

You can also check out the only album he ever finished on Discogs here.Last year at Dekmantel Selectors Boats said he thought one of the DJ’s (can’t remember which one) was playing almost the entire album during the first pre-festival day in the early afternoon. Excellent soundtrack for a beautiful day at the Croatian coast.

If – for some weird reason – you don’t want to watch the documentary you might find his WIkipedia page a good alternative to read up on Arthur Russell and do some reasearch on his life and the music he produced. As you can read there “Throughout the 2000s, a series of reissues, compilations, books, and a biographical documentary significantly raised his profile”. Great news!

I recently bought the vinyl record The World of Arthur Russell compilation in Concerto here in Amsterdam and was blown away by the creativity and depth in his music. So many layers and every song just keeps on giving!

In The Light of The Miracle is currently my alarm clock:

Here are some other songs, hope you enjoy!

Or listen to the full The World Of Arthur Russell Album:

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